Writer and Director: Joel Souza
Instead of quietly deciding to drop the half-finished Rust after lead actor and producer Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on October 21 2021, filming resumed in 2023. Some of the crew didn’t return on principle. Last month, the film did badly at the US box office. In Britain, Rust goes straight to streaming services.
The film itself, a Western ‘road movie’ when grandfather and grandson travel by horseback from Wyoming to New Mexico, is surprisingly old-fashioned and sentimental. When 13-year-old Lucas accidentally shoots (some unintended irony, for sure) the father of a boy who bullied his younger brother, Lucas finds himself tried for murder. He’s convicted and he must hang.
Right at the moment when Lucas is offered his final meal, his grandfather Rust arrives to gather him up and ride to the Mexican border. Of course, they are pursued; by bounty hunters and by a Marshall named Wood, who leaves his dying son at home in care of his phlegmatic wife. The pair encounters indigenous Americans and trappers on the way.
Baldwin is excellent as the surly cowboy from Chicago, but you can’t help but wince each time he picks up his rifle to take down the various men who try to prevent him from taking Lucas to the safety of Mexico. There’s good work too from young Patrick Scott McDermott, who joined the cast after the production’s delay, as Lucas. Josh Hopkins is a suitably weary Wood, grieving the imminent death of his son. Most of the men have perfectly manicured beards, despite being on the road.
Carefully shot in rusty sepia tones, Joel Souza’s film is slow and brooding, but the story, co-written with Baldwin, is familiar, a sort of chaste Two Mules for Sister Sara, Shirley MacLaine and Clint Eastwood’s 1970 film. The gunfights are quickly dealt with, meaning that there is little tension in the film, especially when Rust’s fate is so obviously signposted. More than revealing a Wild West, Souza has aimed for a character study, but Rust doesn’t come across as having many layers. A bit like the film in general.
Rust is available on Digital Platforms 23 June and DVD & Blu-ray 7 July. Distributed by Signature Entertainment.
