by Tim Gordon
No film in recent memory arrives burdened by such a tragic legacy as Rust. Long before its 2024 release, the Western became infamous for the on-set accident that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza. That incident looms large over every frame of this modest, dusty tale of outlaws, fathers, and sons.
Set in the Wyoming Territory of 1882, the film follows 13-year-old Lucas Hollister (Patrick Scott McDermott), who accidentally kills the father of a boy who tormented his brother. Facing the gallows, Lucas is whisked away by his estranged grandfather, Harland Rust (Alec Baldwin), an aging outlaw with nothing left to lose. Together they flee toward the Mexican border, hunted by marshals, bounty hunters, and a deranged preacher.
For all the tragedy surrounding it, Rust is otherwise a straightforward genre piece, leaning heavily on familiar Western tropes: outlaws with hearts of gold, rugged landscapes, brutal showdowns. But Baldwin’s performance gives the film its only real pulse.
Baldwin plays Harland Rust with the tired swagger of a man who has spent a lifetime outrunning his regrets. He’s not reinventing the Western antihero here, but there’s a weary gravity to his portrayal that occasionally cuts through the script’s clichés. When Harland bonds with Lucas over their shared grief, Harland’s wife and son, Lucas’s parents, Baldwin finds moments of genuine vulnerability beneath the scruffy bravado.
There are scenes where his eyes carry the weight of a man who knows his time is nearly up, and in those fleeting moments, Rust hints at the elegiac character study it could have been. It’s a reminder that Baldwin, for all the noise surrounding him, still has the chops to anchor a film when he’s given the space.
Unfortunately, the rest of Rust rarely rises to meet him. Supporting characters feel half-drawn, the plot trudges through familiar chases and shootouts, and Souza’s direction never elevates the material beyond competence. The result is a film that will be remembered not for its performances or craft, but for the heartbreaking real-life event it can never quite outrun.
Grade: C+
