 |
| Images courtesy of Cinématographe |
The second film of Rounders and Joy Ride director
John Dahl Red Rock West, recently restored by Cinématographe in 4K from
the film’s 35mm interpositive and released through their newly formed boutique
label coming out of Vinegar Syndrome, is perhaps the most distinctively
Lynchian neo-noir of the 1990s not actually written or directed by David
Lynch. Co-starring not one but three key
Lynch players with Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle and Dennis Hopper and
co-produced by Wild at Heart financiers Steve Golin and Sigurjon
Sighvatsson, the film was an unusual sleeper hit in that it sold out frequently
at smaller venues in New York and San Francisco while also became a hot VHS and
cable television renter. Already sold
out in its deluxe limited-edition package, the film represents one of Cage’s
more subdued neo-noirs that keeps him from flying off the handle in a tense
twisty-turner where all the players and chips are at stake in this taut little
midwestern free-for-all.
Michael Williams (Nicolas Cage) drifts through the Wyoming
oilfields living out of his car after being discharged from the military and a
job offer falls through due to a preexisting combat injury. Happening into rural ghost town Red Rock
seeking other work, he saunters into a bar managed by a bartender named Wayne
(J.T. Walsh) who picks up on Michael’s rootlessness and assumes he is the
hitman “Lyle from Dallas” he hired to kill his wealthy wife Suzanne (Lara Flynn
Boyle) which Michael hastily goes along with.
After meeting Suzanne firsthand and deciding to back out but keep the
downpayment, he crosses paths with the actual Lyle (Dennis Hopper in classic
over-the-top Frank form), setting off a domino rally of double-crossings and
unexpected revelations where no one is really who they seem.
Written and directed by John Dahl with co-writer Rick Dahl,
this distinctly 1990s chunk of midwestern American neo-noir came out shortly
after Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me and
absolutely feels spoken of the same breath without the hyperactive surrealism
of either Lynch effort. A movie with
Nicolas Cage fulfilling his newly earned cowboy boots, jean jacket and button-down
shirt, the film’s antiheroic drifter suits Cage perfectly who manages to inject
subtlety and nuance into a role that could’ve otherwise scaled a
mountaintop. Dennis Hopper, as always,
is certifiable and threatening and feels like he stepped right off of the set
of Blue Velvet. J.T. Walsh, an
always stellar character actor, really comes into his own here as a mercurial
adversary with greater criminal ambitions ahead than a simple hit. And of course Lara Flynn Boyle, hot off of Twin
Peaks, imbues the film’s mysterious damsel in distress ala Vertigo with
a dangerous edge where she plays the victim but could draw a gun in the blink
of an eye.
Lensed in picturesque if not rustic 1.85:1 widescreen by The
Grifters cameraman Marc Reshovsky whose recurring image of the titular Red
Rock West town sign becomes almost like Soho for Paul Hackett in After Hours
as a town our hero can’t seem to leave, the film looks earthy before wading
within smoky interiors of bars and seedy hotels. The soundtrack by late Kill Me Again composer
William Olvis is an appropriately neo-noir oriented score with notes of Angelo
Badalamenti pulsating through its neon-drenched veins. The look and feel of the shadowy, often
smokey set pieces, feel somewhere between the open rocky terrain of Wild at
Heart with the distinctly small-town American feel of Gas Food Lodging.
A movie which, like John Dahl’s other earlier cinematic
efforts, crept unto cable television before getting renewed reevaluation and
interest through theatrical screenings done later, Red Rock West is a
solid little update on the American film noir that feels like it could coexist
within Lynch’s kindred universes but winds up finding its own unique
footing. With the town itself becoming a
fifth character over time as the film’s hero tries to evade it only to be drawn
right back into its inescapable tractor beam, the mean and mad world of these scheming
double-crossing miscreants is bumpy, rugged and harsh while the tropes of
classic noir have evolved beautifully into the present day. Cage, Walsh, Boyle and Hopper are all solid
in the piece which helped usher in John Dahl’s career as one of the most
flavorful purveyors of American midwestern crime fiction whose works are only
now getting their fair handshake with modern day cinephiles.
--Andrew Kotwicki
