Taglines: Where nothing is as it seems.
Red Rock West movie storyline. Michael Williams (Nicolas Cage) is a drifter living out of his car after being discharged from the Marine Corps. A job on an oilfield falls through due to his unwillingness to conceal a war injury on his job application, so Michael wanders into rural Red Rock, Wyoming, looking for other work. A local bar owner named Wayne (J. T. Walsh) mistakes him for a hit man, “Lyle from Dallas,” whom Wayne has hired to kill his wife. Wayne offers him a stack of cash—”half now, half later”—and Michael doesn’t correct him, taking the money.
Michael then visits Wayne’s wife, Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle), and attempts to warn her that her life is in danger instead of killing her. She offers him more money to kill Wayne. Michael tries to leave town, but a car accident leads him to encounter the local sheriff, who turns out to be Wayne. Michael manages to escape from Wayne but runs into the real Lyle from Dallas (Dennis Hopper). Lyle and Wayne quickly figure out what has transpired, while Michael desperately tries to warn Suzanne before Lyle finds her.
Red Rock West is a 1993 American neo-noir film directed by John Dahl and starring Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Lara Flynn Boyle, Craig Reay, Vance Johnson, Robert Apel, Bobby Joe McFadden, Dale Gibson, Robert Guajardo and Timothy Carhart. It was written by Dahl and his brother Rick, and shot in Montana and Willcox, Arizona.
Film Review for Red Rock West
A dusty, desolate Wyoming town is a logical setting for an updated film noir. The first of many gleeful twists in “Red Rock West” is that Nicolas Cage arrives, as the man least likely to survive a tangle of murder, greed and infidelity. Michael is not stupid; he just has the hapless luck of the terminally honest.
He drives 1,200 miles from Texas to a promised job at a Wyoming oil rig, only to admit on his application that he has a bad knee. Back on the road, he spends his last $5 on gas, though an unguarded cash drawer is spilling bills in front of him. This time his honesty saves him, for the gas-station owner enters at the moment Michael would have had his hand in the till. The director and co-writer, John Dahl, keeps up this perfect swift timing throughout the film, playfully loading on every suspense-genre trick he can imagine. “Red Rock West” is a terrifically enjoyable, smartly acted, over-the-top thriller.
Mr. Cage, once a champion over-the-top actor himself, has become more restrained, funnier and appealing in the last few years (in films like “Honeymoon in Vegas”). He gives the film an intelligent edge, playing Michael with the slightest Elvis drawl and the trace of a dim-witted expression.
When Michael arrives in the town of Red Rock, he allows himself to be mistaken for someone named Lyle, a Texan who has been offered a job at the dingy bar owned by Wayne Brown (J. T. Walsh). It turns out that Lyle is not the bartender Michael assumed, but a hit man hired for $10,000 to bump off Wayne’s beautiful young wife, Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle). When Michael warns Suzanne, she instantly doubles the offer if he will take care of Wayne instead. Even Michael is smart enough to figure out that this has something to do with Suzanne’s lover, a young, good-looking man who lives in a trailer.
The straight-faced wit of “Red Rock West” is most apparent in the polite, neatly written note that Michael then sends to the sheriff: “Wayne Brown may have hired a killer to murder his wife. She may have done the same. Please talk to them before someone gets hurt.” The sheriff, it turns out, is not inclined to be sympathetic. Michael and Suzanne try to escape Red Rock alive, but somehow always find their way back.
The many coincidences that threaten their lives include stolen money, false identities and two car accidents, one involving Michael and Suzanne’s lover, the other Michael and the real Lyle. (Well, it’s a small town.) Lyle is played by Dennis Hopper with his trademark mix of menace and likable good will. He insists on buying Michael a drink because they are both former marines. Michael is dragged back into Wayne’s bar, the last place he wants to be. Eventually, the entire cast slugs it out and shoots it out in a foggy cemetery.
Red Rock West (1993)
Directed by: John Dahl
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Lara Flynn Boyle, Craig Reay, Vance Johnson, Robert Apel, Bobby Joe McFadden, Dale Gibson, Robert Guajardo, Timothy Carhart
Screenplay by: John Dahl, Rick Dahl
Production Design by: Robert Pearson
Cinematography by: Marc Reshovsky
Film Editing by: Scott Chestnut
Costume Design by: Terry Dresbach
Set Decoration by: Kate Sullivan
Art Direction by: Don Diers
Music by: William Olvis
MPAA Rating: R for language and violence, and for sexuality.
Distributed by: TriStar Pictures
Release Date: April 8, 1994
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