Red Rock West (1993)

95% of critics liked it
(37 reviews)
66% of users liked it
(7,211 ratings)

John Dahl directed and co-wrote (along with his brother Rick Dahl) this quirky and energetic film noir that, after a well-received screening at the Toronto Film Festival, was consigned to oblivion before resurfacing on cable television. When the owner of a San Francisco movie theater, who was a big… More John Dahl directed and co-wrote (along with his brother Rick Dahl) this quirky and energetic film noir that, after a well-received screening at the Toronto Film Festival, was consigned to oblivion before resurfacing on cable television. When the owner of a San Francisco movie theater, who was a big fan of the film, arranged for a theatrical release, the film clicked and toured the country as an art house hit. The film concerns eternal loser Michael (Nicolas Cage), down to his last five dollars and looking for work. He finds himself at a bar in the town of Red Rock. The bartender, Wayne (J.T. Walsh) eyes him suspiciously and asks him, "You must be Lyle, from Dallas." Michael, eager to earn some cash, agrees. It seems Wayne has a job for Michael, but what Michael doesn't realize until too late is that the job is to kill Wayne's wife for $10,000. Michael heads out to Wayne's farm with the cash to warn Wayne's wife, Suzanne (Lara Flynn Boyle). Suzanne responds by offering to double Michael's fee if he will kill her husband instead. Michael takes the money and tries to leave town, but when a thunderstorm comes up, he runs over a man who was trying to flag him down. The sheriff arrives on the scene to attend to matters -- who turns out to be Wayne. Wayne proceeds to drive Michael out of town for an execution, but Michael manages to elude him. Flagging down a driver on the road who is driving back into Red Rock, they return to the bar, where the driver offers to buy Michael a drink. As Michael accepts the offer of a drink, he realizes that he is drinking with the real "Lyle from Dallas" (Dennis Hopper) who is awaiting Wayne's return. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Play Trailer

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 37 min.
Directed By: John Dahl
Genres: Mystery & Suspense, Drama

On DVD: Aug 10, 1999
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Critic Reviews

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
It's well worth tracking down, wherever you can find it. For it has the kind of tension and energy -- maybe even a touch of delirium -- that is only a memory in most of today's big studio movies.
Leonard Klady, Variety
A wry thriller with a keen edge.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
A rather ho-hum if watchable neo-noir, though it's been treated in some quarters as something special.
Caryn James, New York Times
It should never have fallen through the cracks. This clever little film is a real find.
Richard Harrington, Washington Post
It is a treasure waiting to be discovered.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
It's the kind of movie made by people who love movies, have had some good times at them, and want to celebrate the very texture of old genres like the western and the film noir.
, Film4
The cast is terrific, with Walsh at his most deliciously amoral.
, TV Guide's Movie Guide
One of the most successful entries in the crowded ranks of early '90s neo-noir thrillers.
Cole Smithey, ColeSmithey.com
Great fun.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
It's a brilliant noir movie that seems to understand the inner workings of film noir, rather than just paying tribute to it.
Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com
A forceful, witty film noir played almost straight.
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
John Dahl's second feature is a quirky, low-budget "Western noir," baosting a fresh narrative angle and a quintessentially indie cast, including Nicolas Cage (before he became a star), J.T. Walsh, and the ubiquitous enfant terrible Dennis Hopper
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
[A] well-played, highly entertaining and playfully ingenious thriller.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
With J.T. Walsh, Dennis Hopper, and Lara Flynn Boyle in your desert thriller, it's hard to go wrong, and in his riveting sophomore feature, John Dahl rarely gets tripped up.
Rob Thomas, Capital Times (Madison, WI)
A great, twisty noir that plants a Jim Thompson plot in the American Southwest.
Blake Davis, KFOR Channel 4 News
A great example of western film noir from director John Dahl, a modern day master of these types of films.

Read all 16 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

Pierluigi P

Entertaining pastiche of noir and western. Notoriously flawed by lack of verisimilitude. The always menacing presence of Dennis Hopper is a plus. A clear inspiration for Oliver Stone's U-Turn.
Aaron N

Lyle: Don't piss on the seat, even if they did. It's bad luck. A neo-noir set in Wyoming that follows all the standards. Nic Cage is the unlucky hero, in over his head. Lara Flynn Boyle is the femme fatale. J.T. Walsh and Dennis Hopper are the ones up to no good. The film… More
Lyle: Don't piss on the seat, even if they did. It's bad luck. A neo-noir set in Wyoming that follows all the standards. Nic Cage is the unlucky hero, in over his head. Lara Flynn Boyle is the femme fatale. J.T. Walsh and Dennis Hopper are the ones up to no good. The film is made well enough and manages to be entertaining for the most part. Cage stars as Michael, a man trying to find a job, but do to a dodgy knee that was injured during his time spent in the military, its quite hard for him. Michael stumbles into a bar only to be mistaken for a hitman by the bartender, played by J.T. Walsh, who hires him to kill his wife, played by Boyle. Michael accepts, only to plan on ditching with the half up front paid money. Things go awry as Michael can't seem to get out of town, only to have even more problems once the real hitman, played by Dennis Hopper, shows up. This film is just fine. It plays with the genre by having it set in the midwest, but really doesn't offer much in the way of surprise. So that leaves the filmmaking and the actors involved. Cage does just fine, Hopper is always interesting to watch, and I do miss the standard type of character that Walsh used to play before he died. Director John Dahl also manages to do a good enough job at throwing in some tension and action our way, which certainly keeps the film's pace moving. A fine thriller. Michael Williams: Adios, Red Rock.
Anthony L

An interesting and entertaining alternative Modern day western. Good performances from Hopper and the late, great J.T. Walsh.
xGary X

Mistaken for a hired killer, drifter Nicolas Cage is offered $5,000 to murder a local bar owner's wife, who in turn offers him $10,000 to return the favour. Planning to just keep the money and skip town, he finds leaving Red Rock is a lot harder than he figured. This heavily… More
Mistaken for a hired killer, drifter Nicolas Cage is offered $5,000 to murder a local bar owner's wife, who in turn offers him $10,000 to return the favour. Planning to just keep the money and skip town, he finds leaving Red Rock is a lot harder than he figured. This heavily Tarantino influenced noir-western hybrid has so many twists and turns, double crosses and double bluffs that by the end you're not sure you're coming or going. It's also a little dated as Lara Flynn Boyle must surely be the worst dressed femme fatale in cinema history. On the plus side, it looks good, has a nice soundtrack and is short and efficient enough to not outstay its welcome. Cage is doing his put-upon "this can't be happening to me!" persona rather than the usual bellowed sarcasm so he's quite bearable and J. T. Walsh and Dennis Hopper make a couple of colourful bad guys. Undemanding yet unpretentious, its very silly, but enjoyably so.
Dean !

A pretty decent thriller with a lot of well known faces. It's about a drifter making out to be a hitman, but things go from strange to worse when he finds out who the client is and and the real hitman shows up. Worth a look next time it comes on TV.
Stephen E

Red Rock West has all the depth of a fine crime novel, and John Dahl is a good storyteller, but the movie is bogged down by stiff acting and predictable dialogue. This is the kind of movie that is designed to please the critics and, unfortunately, Dahl has forgotten about the… More
Red Rock West has all the depth of a fine crime novel, and John Dahl is a good storyteller, but the movie is bogged down by stiff acting and predictable dialogue. This is the kind of movie that is designed to please the critics and, unfortunately, Dahl has forgotten about the audience.
William G

Modest noir has solid performances, pacing in its favor.
Stephen E

Red Rock West has all the depth of a fine crime novel, and John Dahl is a good storyteller, but the movie is bogged down by stiff acting and predictable dialogue.
Lee K

Like i said in previous reviews, recently i have been going through Nic Cage's IMDB list of projects he has done to see if there was anything i hadnt seen that he's been in. And low and behold i found a bunch of em. So far out of three watched i liked 2 of em . 2-1 not a bad… More
Like i said in previous reviews, recently i have been going through Nic Cage's IMDB list of projects he has done to see if there was anything i hadnt seen that he's been in. And low and behold i found a bunch of em. So far out of three watched i liked 2 of em . 2-1 not a bad ratio so far. Just goes to show to show Nic Cage although one of the busiest actors is also careful of the scripts he chooses to work on. Red Rock West is another gem of his that mustve slipped under my radar in 93. Great storyline however i found the ending a little on the cheesy side that being said it was a pretty good thriller. This time round Nic portrays Michael Williams a down and out Texan who resides in his car and tries to get jobs but fails to an injury he took while serving in the marines. Apon driving into a little town of red rock he enters the red rock tavern to see aboiut a job and in a serious judgmrent error ends up taking a job that belonged to a professional hitman (Dennis Hopper) needloess to say all hell breaks loose and the moral of the story is number one money is never easy and number two...watch who's life you try to impersonate as the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Good casting featuring the late great Jt Walsh who was always a pleasure to watch work and a very underated actor to say the least. Another great and recently passed Dennis Hopper portrays the hitman that was originally intended for the hit but was a little later then mike at arriving to the bar. Dennis hopper in my books was awesome in portraying villians. Lara Flynn Boyle rounds off the cast with a less then believable performance as the sheriffs wife who the hit is to be delivered upon. Nic Cage's charector in this spends the rest of the movie digging the hole he has made himself further and further. To get out is the question.
Ivan D

It has the Coen brothers' main elements written all over it: Money, betrayal, violence, and plot twists, yet they're not the ones who made it, but yet it's also as clever and involving, oh, the mysteries of the world. "Red Rock West's" main plot revolved… More
It has the Coen brothers' main elements written all over it: Money, betrayal, violence, and plot twists, yet they're not the ones who made it, but yet it's also as clever and involving, oh, the mysteries of the world. "Red Rock West's" main plot revolved around a simple money-related murder scheme, but one wrong move, and everyone stumbles down in a domino effect of greed. Nicolas Cage, being the only character with sheds of sanity and moral fiber, being down-on-his-luck, bumped into unexpected trouble, meeting the likes of a scheming sheriff, his wife, and a black-clad hitman. Even telling the plot summary of the film is impossible without revealing even one hint of important detail, so go watch it yourself, it is indeed a stylish neo-western-noir, but it is not as atmospheric as the Coens' "Blood Simple"
Doctor S

Taut, twisting thriller/mystery is like a lost 1990s Coen Brothers movie. 'Blood Simple' seems to be a definite inspiration, from the stark, beautifully photographed smalltown atmosphere to the setup of one man hiring another to kill his wife. And much like that film,… More
Taut, twisting thriller/mystery is like a lost 1990s Coen Brothers movie. 'Blood Simple' seems to be a definite inspiration, from the stark, beautifully photographed smalltown atmosphere to the setup of one man hiring another to kill his wife. And much like that film, nothing goes as planned in 'Red Rock West' either, as Nicolas Cage finds himself sucked into deeper and deeper consequences. Couldn't predict what would happen next except that Dennis Hopper would eventually come unhinged - who does it any better? Looking at director John Dahl's resume, no surprise that he was behind the camera for another great indie thriller 'The Last Seduction.' In fact, femme fatale Lara Flynn-Boyle is very Linda Fiorentino-like; Dahl certainly has a type. If you enjoyed that movie, you'll like this one too and vice-versa.
Sean L

I really enjoyed this well constructed modern western noir. Nicolas Cage was very good, staying away from some of his more over the top tendencies and the supporting cast was very solid. It doesn't matter how many crazy villains Dennis Hopper plays, I always seem to like him.… More
I really enjoyed this well constructed modern western noir. Nicolas Cage was very good, staying away from some of his more over the top tendencies and the supporting cast was very solid. It doesn't matter how many crazy villains Dennis Hopper plays, I always seem to like him. The story was elaborate and complex, but never messy and every little piece ended up fitting perfectly well together. Good little thriller.
Dimitris S

Bloody impressive for a medium-budget mystery story.Cage is awful as most of the times but Dahl has studied the early samples of neo-noir and stylistically fuses his picture with unearthly tones and old-fashioned editing to show that Hollywood's ideas can prove alternative at… More
Bloody impressive for a medium-budget mystery story.Cage is awful as most of the times but Dahl has studied the early samples of neo-noir and stylistically fuses his picture with unearthly tones and old-fashioned editing to show that Hollywood's ideas can prove alternative at times.
Anthony V

Good old fashion Film Noir.