'Rust' review: Alec Baldwin's controversial western Western

In a different timeline is Joel Souza's rust Would come and go with mild fanfare and maybe a critical praise. The film follows a 13-year-old boy (Patrick Scott McDermott), who was sentenced to death after the accidental shooting of a local ranch-by his alienated grandfather (Alec Baldwin). It is a Western Western, a classic story of cowboys and outlaws that indulge in the beautiful landscape and the Puritan moral dilemmata, which are fundamental to the majority of the mythology of this nation.

But rust is a more disabled cultural product. Four years ago, Baldwin, who wrote down and produced the film, accidentally released a weapon of which he believed that she only had gaps. A living round was in the chamber, and the ball fatally wounded the cameraman Halyna Hutchins and also beat Souza. What followed was a dramatic, closely reported story that creates negligence and raises questions about industry practices regarding security of weapons. Baldwin was charged with the involuntary homicide, but his case was rejected after new evidence came to light that the alleged lawyers had been buried by the prosecutors. The film's prop, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was also charged and served an 18-month prison sentence.

Although Baldwin Hutchin's surviving family (and Matthew Hutchins, the widower, the producer for the producer) paid for himself, the actor, who was not familiar with controversy, was again found on the wrong side of public opinion. The reserved guilt game among the most important players of the crew had mercilesslessness, and finally more information about the culture in production came out. Shortly before filming, the film's first camera assistant had stopped and quoted discomfort, among other things, about how shootings were played “very quickly and easily”.

Baldwin and Souza ended rustThe rest of the project with Bianca CLINE (film the rest of the project (Marcel the Shell with shoes) as a cameraman. But the result is hit by its history. The film, which is dedicated to Hutchins, has thematic threads that match the contours of Baldwin's case. The action in rust Is driven by a random murder and his central moral dilemma affects a notorious man who tries to do the right thing. Baldwin's performance is dark, maybe weighted by the events on the set. He plays Rust, the title character and grandfather of the accused, as a recognizable figure.

We hear rust before we see him. His metal spores sounded when he shuffles over the wooden floors of the prison house, where his grandson Luca is charged with murder. Earlier scenes showed that the boy after the death of Lucas' mother with his younger brother Jacob (Easton Malcolm) as well as he could. In their little Wyoming settlement (it is the 1880s), they scratch the favors of non -profit neighbors and live on the farm who have left their parents behind.

After a local bully Jacob harasses, Lucas breaks the child's arms. The father of this boy, annoyed that he has a farm hand less, comes to ask Lucas to work for him. Lucas doesn't want to shoot the rancher. The young teenager tries to hunt a wolf that often hung around his farm. But in a kind of fugue state he misses – and murdered the man. A judge finds him guilty and he is convicted of being hung. The whole matter is tragic and McDermott passes on this grief in a committed performance.

Lucas' fear is noticeable when Rust arrives to get him out of prison. The circumstances around the arrival of the older figure are cloudy, wrapped in a secret that is only clarified later. We know that he has come to take his grandson – with which he was never in contact – south of the border where the law cannot touch him. Lucas is skeptical, but would prefer to be alive. He rides away with some concern with rust.

The history of this fleeting couple runs in parallel with two other stories. The first concerns the sheriff Wood Helm (Josh Hopkins) who tries to catch them; The other, a fanatic religious bounty hunter, Fenton Lang (played with adequate slippery by Travis Fimmel). Souza fights to compensate for these three perspectives that do not always complement each other. Your themed-over justice, about religion in America from the 19th century, about outlaws competing around the room and occasionally urged the film.

In search of rust and Lucas, Wood looks at the fate of his own son, who is affected by a potentially fatal illness. Souza's screenplay and Hopkins performance gesture in some internal disputes, but the missions of this suffering are not nearly as clear as they should be. A similar topic occurs with the character of Fenton rust Has space for. Each of the three stories looks at a segment of America in the 19th century, when the young nation was drunk from the possibility of expansion to west and undertook to manifest fate. But the film's employment, for example, does not have as smoothly as in Clint Eastwoods Western.

rust Feels more achieved in other areas such as kinematography and the coordination of combat scenes. It is not clear where Hutchins' work ends and cline begins, but the end result is harmonious and visually convincing. There are some impressive moments that play with shadows and silhouettes, and no lack of dramatically staged weapons battles. Beautiful landscape shots offer a feeling for the extent of the American West, especially since Rust and Lucas navigate through the rough territory. Some representations of the indigenous Americans, for example, border painfully clichés; Others, like those of settlers in the new site, are inspired.

And that's what is ultimately rust needs a little more of. The film is sometimes made competent and absorbing, but there is a Workaday quality that slows down its swing. It's a pretty project, but a story about such a complicated series of characters should make us feel stronger and rust Fight to achieve that.