USA, R, 98 m, 1994
Directed by John Dahl. Stars Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper, et al. 

John Dahl’s hot and raw neo-noir classic Kill Me Again, which played a smattering of near-empty art houses in 1990, was an exceptional directorial debut and a most welcome reinvigoration of an often shamelessly exploited and woefully redundant genre. Dahl’s dreamy, almost surrealistic sense of space and time, deceptive plotting and unabashed penchant for nerve-rattling surprises gave starved lovers of dark cinema a blessedly hearty feast. Most folks caught up with Kill Me Again on videotape, a medium in which Dahl’s trance-like tempo is well serviced. (Laserphiles, yours truly included, bemoaned the movie’s unexplained absence in our coveted niche.) Initially, Dahl’s second feature, Red Rock West, which he co-wrote with his brother Rick, didn’t even receive its predecessor’s modest theatrical run; it premiered on HBO in the fall of ‘93. The film eventually found its way to tape, but sat ignored on dusty rental shelves. The owner of The Roxie in San Francisco, however, perceived the movie’s worthiness and rewarded it with a belated big-screen showing. Soon afterwards, Red Rock West enjoyed a sumptuous transfer to laserdisc and a spotty exhibition in the multiplexes of greater cities. The word started getting around that Dahl was a gifted auteur worthy of an audience. But that audience still eludes him.

Red Rock West isn’t as streamlined an effort as the luxuriant Kill Me Again, but it ponies up nearly as many pleasures. Nicolas Cage plays Michael, a financially strapped, but sweet-natured Texan who ventures to Wyoming to take a job with a drilling crew. The offer is revoked, however, when the employer learns of Michael’s bum knee. (A former Marine, our protagonist was injured in the line of duty.) Desperate for work, Michael drops his last fiver on gas and drives his beat-up Caddie to the sleepy town of Red Rock. He stops by the town’s namesake watering hole where the owner, Wayne Brown (the always welcome J.T. Walsh), mistakes him for a prospective hit man from Texas. Sensing that a good chunk of change could be had here, Michael coolly plays along. Wayne offers him five grand to murder his estranged wife, Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle), and promises to shell out another five upon completion of the bloody deed. Michael pockets the down payment and motors over to the couple’s ranch. While surveying the estate, he spots wifey climbing into a hired hand’s trailer for a midday tryst. He creeps into the Brown’s abode and waits for the adulterating misses. When Suzanne returns home, Michael divulges her husband’s devious plan. Not exactly overwhelmed by the news, she offers to double Mr. Brown’s blood money—providing Michael sends him to the grave.

That night, as a formidable storm descends upon Red Rock, Michael fills up his tank and prepares to split with the booty, but not before mailing an anonymous letter to the town’s sheriff explaining Wayne and Suzanne’s shameful plot. On his way out of town, however, Michael mows over some poor schlep stumbling about in the rain-soaked road. He briefly contemplates his options, eyeballing the road ahead and then the motionless husk in his rearview mirror. He dashes into the barbarous downpour to assist the hapless pedestrian and quickly ascertains that it’s Mrs. Brown’s young lover. He rushes the ensanguined fellow back to the local hospital and attempts to explain the accident to a somewhat skeptical doctor. The sheriff is summoned because it appears that the victim was shot twice in the stomach prior to the accident. Much to Michael’s chagrin, the town’s constabulary is also the deviant saloon proprietor. And to make matters worse, the actual hitman, Lyle (played by the incomparably eccentric Dennis Hopper), has finally arrived in Red Rock. This is when things really get dicey.

Dahl has lots of fun and games with the film noir formula, but Red Rock West isn’t the labored joke that the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple was. Dahl remains faithful to the genre’s conventions; he doesn't skimp on the hackneyed elements that we’ve come to demand from film noir. He brings the pulpy material up to date, however, by introducing a puissant measure of AIDS-induced nihilism. The movie has just as many twists and turns as the labyrinthine Kill Me Again, yet it’s never hard to follow because Dahl is very conscientious about how all the pieces fit together. Lesser filmmakers may skimp on the details, but Dahl recognizes that that’s where the Devil is, and you better believe that he gives him his due. With help from editor Scott Chestnut, Dahl keeps the action moving at a brisk but unhurried pace.

As the sordid tale moves along, Michael becomes more entangled in a very tricky web of deceit and double-crossings. In the grand noir tradition, he beds the picture’s icy femme fatale, Mrs. Brown, and becomes a participant in her half-baked scheme to rob the mister of his illegally acquired wealth. As the movie’s shaggy, somewhat aloof “everyman,” I don’t think Cage has ever been as effective (or funny) as he is here. His performance in Red Rock West is so quietly effective that it’s easy for the less astute to overlook his work in favor of the showier supporting parts. Mind, there was a time when I simply could not abide Cage’s acting. His work in Moonstruck and Peggy Sue Got Married was so thoroughly rotten that it became almost second nature for me to avoid a film that touted his name on the marquee. David Lynch, however, saved the day when he cast Cage in Wild at Heart. As the crooning ex-con Sailor, the actor won me over with his riotous send-up of machismo. It was a brilliantly executed goof that rivaled Brando’s mumbling performance as the dissident biker in The Wild One. Cage has been growing as an actor ever since, and I’ve grown into his biggest fan.

June 15, 1994

© Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.