‘Rust' Review: It's a Hard Watch

New York Times

01-05-2025

It's impossible to watch 'Rust,' a period western steeped in death, without thinking about the catastrophe that occurred on set while it was being filmed in New Mexico on Oct. 21, 2021. During a rehearsal, a gun that the star Alec Baldwin was handling discharged a live bullet, fatally wounding the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and injuring the director, Joel Souza. Hutchins was 42; she is survived by a son and her husband, Matthew Hutchins.
In March 2024, the movie's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter; she received an 18-month sentence. In July 2024, a case against Baldwin was dismissed after a judge determined that some of the evidence had been mishandled.
'There is no way for the court to right this wrong,' the judge said.
Those words haunt 'Rust,' which is now being released simultaneously in theaters and on streaming. The fact that it is now available to the viewing public isn't enough to justify a review. And, in truth, this is no longer an ordinary movie; it is, rather, a deeply depressing coda to an appalling and entirely preventable tragedy. In general, live ammunition should never be on any film set, per industry standards. Gutierrez-Reed, who was 24 at the time and an inexperienced armorer, was supposed to load the revolver that Baldwin was holding with dummy rounds. But one of the rounds she loaded into the gun was live.
This wasn't the first time that someone died in a preventable accident while making a movie. In 2014, Sarah Jones, 27, was struck by a train while working as a camera assistant on the drama 'Midnight Rider.' The project was never finished, and crews began putting Jones's name on clapboards as part of a campaign known as 'Safety for Sarah.' As the cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who had started another safety initiative for more humane working hours, said: 'We are making entertainment, and there's no reason to risk our lives and our health to get a shot.' His words should have been seared into the minds of everyone in the industry, and anyone who flouts safety protocols should be banned.
Three and a half years after Hutchins's death, the only question that seems worth asking about 'Rust,' I think, is what does its release mean to her family. In 2022, some members reached a settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the movie's producers a few months before production resumed. Hutchins was named as one of the movie's executive producers, and 'Rust,' somewhat queasily, has been dedicated to her. A release from the 'Rust' representatives states that its original producers will not gain financially from the movie. The terms of Matthew Hutchins's settlement were sealed, the release said, but it has been confirmed that he and the couple's son, Andros, will receive profits from the film.
That alone is the only justification for why 'Rust' wasn't shelved. This is pretty much all there is to say about this movie, a derivative, hyperviolent, finally sentimental drama set in the 19th century about an orphan (Patrick Scott McDermott) and his outlaw grandfather (Baldwin) that's filled with mayhem and carnage. There's a protracted scene of a hanging, and characters consistently shoot at one another, including at close range. Like the country itself, American cinema has always been steeped in violence, and while sometimes the onscreen brutality is narratively justified, here it largely comes off as egregious, indulgent posturing.
The images are nicely composed and dramatically lighted, with bright, sometimes moody big-sky exteriors that suggest freedom and many interior scenes pushed to claustrophobic darkness. There's a sense of cinema history, too, and a pro forma nod at 'The Searchers.' It may be reassuring for some viewers to see 'Rust' as a kind of testimonial to Hutchins's talent. Another cinematographer, Bianca Cline, stepped in when the shoot resumed, though, so it is impossible to distinguish who did what, much less what was done in postproduction. What is undeniable is that because 'Rust' looks as good as it does, every time riders on horseback appear against a florid sky, it isn't the characters you think about — it's Halyna Hutchins.