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Stars: Alec Baldwin, Josh Hopkins, Patrick Scott McDermott
Director: Joel Souza
Distributor: Signature Entertainment

“…I hereby sentence you to hang.”

The production that saw the accidental death of its cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, finally has both a digital and physical release after a very dark and chilling few years since the passing. Rust sees Alec Baldwin take the saddle in a rare career western; a passion project that wants to be True Grit with the cinematography of The Searchers.

Opening with a pallete of incredible western cinematography, Rust immediately has the feeling of a big screen epic. It looks the part. It has that eerie feeling of a harsh western. Rust begins with Lucas (Patrick Scott McDermott) and his younger brother, Jacob (Easton Malcolm), as orphaned children in the 1880s. When a scuffle breaks out between Jacob and another boy, this leads to Lucas breaking the arm of his brother’s aggressor, and in turn, the other boy’s father – a local rancher – finds himself at the home of Lucas and Jacob in pursuit of payback. Lucas accidentally kills the rancher.

Sentenced to hanging – yes, hanging a child in public – Lucas finds himself in jail with time ticking away. In the dead of night, a stranger, a grey figure of man provides against-the-odds heroics and frees Lucas from his constraints and, essentially, his impending doom. This figure: Rust (Alec Baldwin). More than just a stranger wanting to liberate imprisoned children, Rust is the grandfather of Lucas and Jacob. With a plan to travel south to Mexico from Wyoming, Rust finds themselves in pursuit of both Sheriff Wood Helm (Josh Hopkins) and a bounty hunter, Preacher Lang (Travis Fimmel).

In this particular western, the journey we share with Rust and Lucas resembles that of, essentially, a road movie. Completely aided by Hutchins’ cinematography, the locations visited and the variation of characters encountered both add an enjoyable, mature element to Rust. The concept of the road movie, or the travelling western, enables the transitioning beauty of landscape cinematography in parallel with the variety of situations and characters that Rust and Lucas encounter along the way.

Baldwin looks great in the titular role, but this character’s edginess and grizzled prowess needed to be aided by a stronger supporting cast. The development of the relationship with his grandson, Lucas, almost downplays and slightly diminishes how dark and roughed-up Rust’s background actually is. Simply not gritty enough, however, one scene does occur where Bladwin’s rust takes a knife to an aggressor towards Lucas, and in that moment, we actually feel, “Hang on, Rust may have actually seen some shit.”

Ultimately, Rust is an absolutely gorgeous-looking western. From costume to cinematography, Rust looks great. The stand-out issue – beyond the obvious – is the duration. Clocking out at around 2hrs 20, this one feels long. The pacing does not suit the duration. What we do see, whilst good, just isn’t dark or gritty enough for this story. There are a handful of dark sequences and scenes, but just not tonally dark overall. Rust should have been the darkest western since Bone Tomahawk.