As early as the spring of 2020, “Hunting for Red October” star Alec Baldwin announced that he was the main actor, co-author and producer of the Western “Rust – Legend of the West“Due to the covid pandemic, the recordings were delayed by more than a year. In autumn 2021 it was finally time, but on the set there was a terrible accident: A revolver propary was loaded with a sharp cartridge for still not conclusively clarified. Chief camera woman Halyna Hutchins (“Time Cut”). Director and co-author Joel Souza (“In the Network of Violence”) was also hit, but got away with comparatively slight injuries. The shooting was stopped immediately.
Police investigations and various legal processes followed. The von Hutchins family made an agreement with the production company and in April 2023 the shooting was resumed. And even if the result with a more expensive mammoth project like Kevin Costner's “Horizon” saga cannot keep up, “Rust” is an atmospheric and visually convincing Western classic school that deserves to be seen by genre fans. The external shots, which are turned in Montana and New Mexico in particular, know how to inspire with their authentic epic.
Harland Rust (Alec Baldwin) has years of experience to hide …
Wyoming in the 1880s: In the prairie territory that has not yet been part of the United States, the Outlaw and Murderer Harland Rust (Alec Baldwin), who was under-dived years ago, suddenly come back into public. He even risks an arrest to save his grandson Lucas (Patrick Scott McDermott) against the gallows. The 13-year-old is to be tied up because he is held responsible for the death of a neighboring rancher.
After the bloody liberation from the prison cell, the duo flees with the aim of Mexico through a lawless country populated by warlike indigenous tribes. A high bounty is suspended, which is why Grandpa and nephew will soon no longer only be pursued by Marshal Wood Helm (Josh Hopkins) and his men, but also by a large number of lucky knights. The most dangerous, because the most intelligent and at the same time the most ruthless is the professional head money hunter Fenton “Preacher” Lang (Travis Fimmel) …
Can you do that?
Everyone has to decide for themselves whether it was right to complete the film despite the fatal accident. The same applies to the question of whether you want to watch a film in whose creation process has died. After the credits, you can see pictures of Halyna Hutchins, which was created on the set, to which director Joel Souza explains from the off -road that he, the producers and the family of the deceased, have jointly decided to complete the work so that their last recordings can still be seen publicly and do not simply disappear into the archives of the studio. All proceeds of the publication of “Rust” go to the bereaved of Hutchins, according to a final overlap.
Detached from the tragic events during its production, “Rust” has not become an outstanding, but has become a good film. Fans of classic Westerns and Slowburn character dramas should always get their money's worth. In addition, it would have been a shame if we couldn't get the many beautiful panoramas of the prairie with the majestically -looking Rocky Mountains in the background. Which of them come from Halyna Hutchins and which of the Bianca CLINE (“Marcel The Shell With Shoes On”), which replaces you) is not yet well known.
The lush bounty ensures that several parties on the heels of the fleeting booklets …
Alec Baldwin sorted the story he did and in collaboration with Souza in script form before shooting near “merciless”. He is not completely wrong with that, but then some shelves took too high. “Rust-Legend of the West” is certainly not a wild west milestone like the Clint-Eeastwood masterpiece. For this purpose, some passages should have been shortened significantly or better omitted-especially some excessive sequences with the pursuers of the fleeting grandfather-based team. The fact that the bounty hunter, which has previously been sufficiently unappealing to deteriorating, is clearing a few competitors out of the way and shortly afterwards a widowed farmers' woman does not really advance the figure or the story as a whole. Nevertheless, we spend a lot of cancellations with him, while the main story is more or less pausing.
With its personal history, the Marshal is an exciting character: Souza and Baldwin should have already separated from two of its companions in the screenworthy, but at the latest during the end cut. It is a brothers (Sam Carson and Devon Werkheiser), which are quarreling in a tour and repeatedly beaten. Apparently you should act as a comic relief, which does not work. Their deposits seem out of place and cumbersome – and they do not fulfill a real function within the group of the Marshal.
A touching grandfather duo
The best scenes by far-in addition to the credibly withdrawn shootout action-are the moments between Baldwin's figure and his grandchild (“goosebumps”) shown by Patrick Scott McDermott. Souza takes a lot of time for the two – which definitely pays off. Like the audience, the boy does not even know who the mysterious and repellent old guy who got him out of prison – and what his plans could be with him. Only gradually does a kind of trust relationship and finally even emotional warmth between them arise. All of this is very authentic and even touching.
In order not to have to turn the scene that led to the death of Halyna Hutchins, Souza wrote the script between stopping and resuming the work in the 18 months. How good and effectively the initially planned showdown would have been can only be speculated. As it is presented in the version now published, the end comes very satisfactory.
Conclusion: a somewhat too long, but more authentic, entertaining and in the way even really touching Western.