It used to be that a guy had to go to the city for a bellyful of murder and duplicity. In the classics of the film noir genre, cities were so packed with corruption that nice guys didn't simply finish last, they usually finished face down in a back alley. But those were the old days when tough guys haunted smoky jazz clubs and rain-slick streets. Today, the action is located on the prairie.
Which is what Nicolas Cage discovers in this year's hot cult movie, Red Rock West. It's the latest piece of "cowboy noir," following in the boot steps of Blood Simple, Flesh and Bone and Kill Me Again, Red Rock West director John Dahl's previous thriller. Not only has Dahl's new effort been a major critical hit on the film festival circuit, but it also has generated a deafening buzz among film buffs.
In Red Rock West, Cage plays a drifter who's cruising for jobs through the oil fields of Wyoming. He's flat broke when he pulls into the town of Red Rock and willing to try almost anything when a bar owner (J. T. Walsh) offers him a gig. What Cage doesn't realize is that Walsh has him confused with a hitman from Dallas whom Walsh hired and is expecting. Cage has no intention of doing the job, which is killing Walsh's wife (Lara Flynn Boyle). Then again, that money is damned tempting....
The plot of Red Rock West turns more twisty than a bad stretch of road, especially when Boyle offers Cage more money to murder her husband than her husband is offering Cage to kill her. Not to mention when the real hitman (Dennis Hopper) shows up and offers to whack just about everybody. Add Dwight Yoakam in an effective cameo role, and you've got a movie lover's delight - a taut and surprisingly slick little gem of a film.
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