Red Rock West

Michael is on his way to the oil fields of Wyoming in his old Cadillac. Someone has agreed to give him a job. But an old kneewound makes itself felt, and Michael has to make a little detour to check up on it. He ends up in Red Rock where he is mistakenly identified as a hit-man, who is out to eliminate the local barman's wife. When the barman starts waving his notes about, Michael is tempted to play along. But he decides to take the money and run before the situation deteriorates any further.

COMMENTARY
If you swopped the cars for horses, the talk of Vietnam for the Civil War, and dressed the actors up according to the fashion of the 19th century, Red Rock West would immediately be considered a classic Western. Red Roel( West has a typical Western narrative, with the stranger who comes to town looking for work; the corrupt sheriff, whose beautiful wife our hero immediately falls in love with, and so on.
John Dahl's debut feature is, if you like, in a typical Western manner, a film about how to stay honest. The young, strong and single man on his way through the American wilderness is tempted to compromise, and renounce his earlier manifested ideals again and again. He is compelled by a whirlwind of circumstances (fate?) involving murder, deceit, as well as being ambushed by malignance. Anyway, we won't have to lose
any sleep, since the All American Boy certainly gives way to temptation, but he is back on track again before you know it. The moral of the story turns out to be the well-known ''crime doesn't pay'' and ''what goes around comes around''.
Red Rock West may be a movie crammed with stereotypes, but they are so well performed and shot with a touch so light, that the end-result is entertaining enough. With a smile of recognition, we see Nicolas Cage as the decent mischievous boy, and Dennis Hopper as the psychopath, developing their characters and reaching new heights of acting with an unfailing sense of style. The two actors are by now firmly categorized, and you will have no trouble figuring out how a movie will turn out if they are cast in it. This is not to be taken as criticism.
Lara Flynn Boyle plays a different part from the ones in David Lynch's Twin Pea/(s and in last year's fiasco Equinox by Alan Rudolph. This time she plays a cold-blooded gold-digger who will do anything to win the game: ''The owls are not what they seem''. ':'
Petter Mattsson