The fate of an orphan will change the lives of grown men around the country. While taking care of his little brother, Jacob (Easton Malcolm) in Wyoming in 1882, Lucas (Patrick Scott McDermott) accidentally shoots a man on his land. Sentenced to hang, Harland Rust (Alec Baldwin), an outlaw and Lucas’ maternal grandfather, rescues him and is determined to save his life. “Rust” (2024) could also be called No Country for Young Boys as various men hunt him down for the bounty so they could return him to Haynesville to hang.
Disclaimer: my desktop computer was the largest screen that the “Rust” screener could play. One reason to see this movie in theaters: Souza did not seem to test the film on multiple types of screens, and depending on the device that you stream it, the nighttime and darker scenes are inscrutable, which means a lot of material gets lost. No one should feel bad because “Game of Thrones” made the same mistake, and they had far more resources and experience, but in the twenty-first century, every filmmaker should make a film and test it on a variety of screens (television, desktop computers, laptops, phone) before letting it out of production. It made the film challenging to stay invested in, and the length of the runtime did not help.
During the pandemic, even after there was a vaccine, every time that I did anything, I asked myself, “Is this worth dying for?” It often included a movie, and if the movie was good enough, I did not mind it appearing on my tombstone as stupid as that may sound. Another question soon followed: is it worth someone else dying for—specifically my elderly mom? A much harder question to answer and usually in the negative, but it did not stop me from going to work and having a life, but I was careful. Spoiler alert: I never infected my mom, but when she went to a nursing home, they did not give her the vaccine, she got Covid and died within a week of testing negative, which helped others rationalize that they were not responsible for her death because it was not obviously Covid so they could sleep at night and keep operating with a clear conscience. Tragically “Rust” faces a similar problem. While no one ever sets out to do something where the effect is death, it still happened. Someone, allegedly Baldwin, shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. She died, and writer and director Joel Souza also got injured. In April 2025, the armourer in charge Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of negligent homicide thus the only one held responsible. Meanwhile Baldwin is on reality television. So is this movie worth it? No. Is it bad? Also no. So here are the pros and cons to still watching it, but it is not a hell yes. Friday May 2nd is the most meh movie release date of 2025.
Basically, the wild West is a merciless place that does not care about anyone, even kids, but it is also an ephemeral time about to pass. The law usually only intervenes to punish until money is involved. Then anyone can get a belly full of led to get a bounty. So “Rust” is about a race to get Lucas to the border and save his life before he can become a payday for unsavory men, and the tension is whether anyone will act like a human being and help save him. It is an environment that warps men into murderers or greed monsters, but Lucas could escape that fate if he escapes that territory. Rust gets to be a merciless murderer and the most ironically caring person other than Lucas’ great aunt and civilized lady from Chicago, Mrs. Evelyn Bassett (Frances Fisher). Lucas does not know his family, and like the law, they did not care about him until it was too late so a lot of the time between Lucas and grandpa is Lucas bristling against a fearsome stranger’s rough discipline with the rationale that if actions save Lucas’ life, nothing else is needed. Abusive people actually love you! These scenes start aggravating because instead of just saying that he is his grandfather, he says a lot more words that mean “don’t question authority and be grateful.” Yes, kids go with the stranger but only if others are trying to kill you. Baldwin is a great actor, but the accent work is shaky. He just sounds anachronistic and cannot decide if he should have a twang to his voice or not. He seems believable in the role, but the voice kills any suspension of disbelief. He needed more work with a vocal coach or just should have given up and picked a lane.
Practically wearing white (he is a good guy), US Marshall Wood Helm (Josh Hopkins in a role originally intended for Jensen Ackles who wisely suddenly had scheduling conflicts and ran in the opposite direction) leads the forces of good, law enforcement, and is not in it for the money. He is introduced saving a little Spanish speaking girl from a couple of racist guys who like to kill Native Americans so even though it is a period movie, it is also an alternate history movie where the good guys have decent values, which is a nice little fantasy and likely unrealistic since it is not true now when we should know better. Ackles has been a charisma machine since “Dark Angel,” and it is a shame that he was not in the role. Hopkins is fine, but not on the same distinct level as the other opposing forces.
There are various bounty hunters who run the gamut of seeming normal to downright villainous, but all seem to have an obvious flaw. “Rust” is not big on subtlety, and Fenton “Preacher” Lang (Travis Fimmel) wears black, is hella racist and loves hunting runaway slaves, but will diversify with chasing little boys and killing old men while being a hypocrite and sleeping with every woman who crosses his path. Fimmel, who is best known for playing Ragnar Lothbrok in “Vikings,” is unrecognizable here, but he delivers the most memorable performance as a character who feels like a cousin to Harry Powell from “The Night of the Hunter” (1955). Other than Baldwin, Fimmel, the women and children actors, most people, good or bad, are barely individuated and forgettable.
Cinematographers Hutchins and Bianca Cline make “Rust” worth watching and understood how to capture the majestic beauty of the location, Bonanza Creek Movie Ranch in New Mexico, the site of numerous Westerns. Every exterior scene is like an answered prayer and elevates a movie that takes a long time to get where it is going, which is as predictable as a math equation using single digit numbers.
“Rust” is well executed but lacks emotion and momentum. It feels as if it covered well-trod, familiar ground while bringing no fresh insight to the table. Everyone did a good job, but in a market with so many innovative movies redefining the genre, you must be transcendent, not notorious, to make any ripples in the vast sea of content.
