Really Surprised!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

When a promised job for Michael fails to materialise in Wyoming, Mike is mistaken by Wayne, the town Sheriff, to be the hit-man he hired to kill his unfaithful wife, Suzanne. Mike takes full advantage of the situation, collects the money and runs. During his getaway, things go wrong, and soon get worse when he runs into the real hit-man, who happens to be Dennis Hopper....Red Rock West is one of Dahl's more overlooked movies, but it's certainly one of the best, and in my opinion, it's a more satisfying experience than 'The Last Seduction'.But it's probably because I saw it a long time after its release, and it has two great performances from the late Hopper and Walsh, both of whom never failed to disappoint, but most of all, its so good to see Cage put in a great performance, because as we all know, he's not been too picky with his choice of roles lately.The story is great, the narrative handles the twists cleverly, and it has that classy feel to it, a thriller you can really get your teeth into, and even though you know that Cage will come good, the film has so many surprises, you can forgive the predictability.Well worth watching.

Intriguing crime-drama. Set-up is great. Plot development is good - suspense is maintained throughout. Plot is interesting, but not watertight - some things just don't gel. Dialogue is a bit clichéd at times. Ending also feels a bit unrealistic.This all said, quite entertaining and always intriguing.Good performance from Nicholas Cage in the lead role. Lara Flynn Boyle puts in a solid performance as the femme fatale. Dennis Hopper overdoes the theatrics though.Supporting cast are OK. Best of the bunch would be Timothy Carhart as the lead Deputy Sheriff.

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 hadn't 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 must've 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 about a job and in a serious judgement error ends up taking a job that belonged to a professional hit-man (Dennis Hopper) needless 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 underrated actor to say the least. Another great and recently passed Dennis Hopper portrays the hit-man 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 villains. 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 character in this spends the rest of the movie digging the hole he has made himself further and further. To get out is the question.

John Dahl's Red Rock West is a neat, taut, stripped down piece of cut-and-thrust film-making without gimmickry nor a single false string attached. In a current contemporary world of American film-making, and one that was almost certainly predominant at the time of Red Rock West's inception, how wonderful it is to uncover a film that refrains from the over indulgence of extravagance and the ideology that awe is built on a foundation of overkill and visuals. That's not to say Red Rock West is without extravagance nor awe, such is Dahl's ability, that the film is full of a number of various incidences and twists that are exactly these things and gotten across by way of little more than a glance from one of the character's or an individual cut of the camera. When we hark back to America's independent cinematic boom of the late 1980s and going on into the early 1990s, certainly a boom that saw a number of films and individual directors both honoured and recognised on the European film circuit at the top level in a series of Golden Palm nominations, the displaying of Red Rock West shows we must not glance over the name of Dahl when speaking of both the films and directors of that era, namely: the Coen Brothers; Steven Soderburgh; Spike Lee and Tarantino, et al.The film revolves around Nicolas Cage's character named Michael Williams, an ex-Marine of American nationality down on his luck and strapped for money in the dusty outback of Wyoming. He lives out of his car; uses random road side troughs full of water as makeshift sinks and struggles to find work, the latest failing being a construction site job that doesn't come through, although later on, he'll find ample opportunity at constructing something: a monstrosity of a scenario for himself. Unbeknownst to us at the time, he's going into the misadventure he'll come to have with a prior tragedy of having served time in the Vietnam War, but suffering during this stretch at the hands of a missile attack on a base in Lebanon he was positioned at which forced him into enduring a glut of both chaos and death. The event that may very well lend itself to Williams' dishevelled and down-beat tone and attitude, something Cage pulls off in that naturalistic manner he's done so on occasion since, shares eerie parallels with what will come to unfold around him as another glut of death and chaos unfolds around a man who has signed up for something you only realise you don't want to be anywhere near when it gets ugly as 'wrong place – wrong time' scenario once again kicks in.The devilish premise sees Williams pretend to be the Texan hit-man an apparent bar owner named Wayne (Walsh) called for some days ago so as to do some local dirty-work he wants taken care of. His looming over a seated Cage whilst in the office an early establishing of power, the sort of power that he'll come to have over him as Williams is forced throughout into proverbially dancing to the tune of others. But rather than eliminate the target, Wayne's wife played by Lara Flynn Boyle, Williams warns her of the predicament and that her marriage ought quite clearly be an item of concern form here on in. Once all is said and done, the real hit-man in Dennis Hopper's Lyle shows up in jet black Texan attire and similarly coloured car more resembling a hearse than anything else, whilst developments and complications in exactly who it is the chief of police is in the whole area open up.For Cage's character, and like in most good film noir when dealing with the down-trodden lead whom treads a fine line between right and wrong, the persistent idea of torn morals floats to the surface relatively quickly and consistently in Red Rock West. In just observing the premise, the notion of Williams illegally accepting the offer of being paid to kill someone before refraining from doing it when confronted with the innocent figure of Wayne's wife, Dahl highlights his character's soon-to-be prominent ever shifting; ever changing attitudes to what crime infused activity is playing out around him. Throughout, Williams lies; shoots; kills and steals but additionally saves; offers salvation and actually avoids violence on several occasions when straight forward murder would have offered a simple way out of a predicament. Given this, Dahl expertly manoeuvres Williams from one town in the form of Red Rock to another and then back over the border again, a sort of physical flitting from one place to another in what is a physical manifestation of both the above theories of a film noir's male lead as well as Cage's character's constantly ambiguous hopping from justified in his actions to not as so.Red Rock West moulds a fascinating, and quite terrifying at times, tale out of all these elements; combining a number of items such as double-crosses; multiple identities and intense connections characters have with one another, the sorts that they're forced into forging before later being asked what they truly mean to them. Dahl additionally, and in a very basic sense, taps into a certain idea of post-war disillusionment through his lead in Williams' disconnection from the rest of society seeing him inhabit a desolate and often incomprehensible rural locale in which he just about scrapes by. This, as an old war injury refrains him from making any true advancement in a chosen field of work. Red Rock West is a tight, gripping piece; the sort that arrives with a steady and effective eye on a variety of items all the while under the control of a steady, focused hand.