Michael Williams is a drifter living out of his car after being discharged from the Marine Corps. After a job on a Wyoming oilfield falls through due to his unwillingness to conceal a war injury on his job application, Michael wanders into the rural town of Red Rock looking for other work. A local bar owner named Wayne mistakes him for a hitman, "Lyle from Dallas", whom Wayne has hired to kill his wife. Wayne offers him a stack of cash—"half now, half later"—and Michael plays along by taking the money.
Michael visits Wayne's wife, Suzanne, but instead of killing her, warns her that her life is in danger. She offers him more money to kill Wayne. Michael tries to leave town with her cash, but runs into a man by the side of the road and turns back to bring him to the hospital. It turns out that the hurt man had been shot shortly before Michael ran into him, and the hospital calls in the local sheriff, who turns out to be Wayne. Michael escapes but runs into the real Lyle from Dallas. Lyle and Wayne quickly figure out what has transpired, while Michael desperately tries to warn Suzanne before Lyle finds her.
The next morning, when Lyle comes to get money from Wayne, he kidnaps both Suzanne and Michael, who are trying to retrieve cash from a safe in Wayne's office. Wayne and Suzanne are revealed to be wanted for embezzlement, and Wayne is arrested by his own deputies. Lyle returns with Michael and Suzanne hostage and gets Wayne out of jail to retrieve their stash of money. The dig up the cash from a remote graveyard where Wayne had buried it, and a melee ensues, with Lyle being killed, Wayne gravely injured, and Michael hurt as well.
Michael and Suzanne board a nearby train, but when Suzanne tries to betray Michael, he throws the money out of the speeding train and then pushes Suzanne off to be arrested by the police. He remarks finally, "Adios, Red Rock". Michael notices and keeps a small packet of bills that hadn't blown out of the box car, and keeps riding the train.
Test screenings for the film were not strong and Peter Graves, an independent consultant who headed the marketing department at Polygram said, "The film doesn't fall neatly into any marketable category. A western film noir isn't something people can immediately spark to".[2] One of the producers suggested early on that the film be submitted to the Sundance Film Festival and was told by the studio that it wasn't a festival film.[2]
The film opened successfully in theaters in Germany, Paris, and London in the summer of 1993. Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival, saw the film in Paris and decided to show it at the festival in September 1993.[2] Bill Banning, who owned the Roxie Cinema and Roxie Releasing in San Francisco, saw Red Rock West in Toronto and thought that there might be an American theatrical audience for the film. It took him until January 1994 to find out who owned the rights.[2] The film had already played on HBO in the fall of 1993 and was due to come out on video in February 1994.[2] Banning started showing Red Rock West at the Roxie Cinema on January 28, 1994, where it broke box office records before expanding to eight theaters in the city.[2] It then opened in Los Angeles and New York City.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 40 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Red Rock West is a hidden neo-noir gem with some delightful cracks in its surface – and an opportunity to see Lara Flynn Boyle, Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, and J.T. Walsh go toe-to-toe in all their early '90s glory."[3]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 79 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[4]
In his review for The Washington Post, Richard Harrington praised it as "a treasure waiting to be discovered".[5] Writing in The New York Times, Caryn James called it "a terrifically enjoyable, smartly acted, over-the-top thriller".[6]Roger Ebert praised it as "a diabolical movie that exists sneakily between a western and a thriller, between a film noir and a black comedy," and gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four.[7]
The soundtrack for the film features a number of country music performers, including Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, Toby Keith, The Kentucky Headhunters, and Sammy Kershaw. Dwight Yoakam wrote the film's closing credits song "A Thousand Miles From Nowhere" when the film was being made and while the musician made his acting debut in the film. The song went on to become a Top 10 country hit.[14]
