text: Red Rock West is a perfect example of how good a film can be with practically no budget. All you need is a smart script, good actors and loads of atmosphere. RRW delivers all these and more.<br /><br />Nic Cage plays an ex-marine, injured in Lebanon, who is down to his last 5 dollars after being refused a job on an oilfield because of his bad knee. He roles into Red Rock and is mistaken by bartender Wayne (JT Walsh, not quite as his most menacing-but still evil) for a hit-man from Texas.<br /><br />He pays him to kill his wife and make it look like burglary. Only when he gets there, just to check her out. She offers him double to kill Wayne. Cage just wants to get the hell out of town with his free money and leave the sparring lovers be. But a series of mishaps and setbacks results in him yo-yoing in and out of Red Rock, back and forth. Eventually this leads to a run-in with Lyle from Dallas (a cheeky and somehow sympathetic Dennis Hopper), the REAL hit-man from Texas who offers to help without knowing he's making the plot more complicated.<br /><br />RRW never had a big release, thus most of it's audience discovered it on video or on cable TV showings. Viewing it in such a way might make it seem like a TV movie but it's bigger than that. The slick, slowly-timed direction, moody score and howling desert wind would have all made for a great movie in theatres but the best you can do these days is watch the DVD on a big HDTV.<br /><br />The only weak point of the movie I can think of is Lara Flynn Boyle's boring femme fatale with the nasty dyke-ish hairdo. I certainly wouldn't fall for her but if you assume that Nic Cage's character is in to militant lesbians then you'll accept it nonetheless.