Meaning a light Man like this man letting butterfly flapping and wing big down in a forest. Man, it gonna cause the tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.
Man, nobody seen, nobody else.
See.
You don't need no.
Man like you followed another story and you got back to flect that win.
Man, go back to dag on the panela.
Man, you don't matter, man, I don't anyway? All right, Andrew Edwards, Welcome back to the Jay Burden Show. How you doing, man?
Good, Good to be with you again, sir.
Yeah, Man, I'm really excited to have this conversation because through our last couple movie reviews and then also some things I've seen on the sign and just enjoyed, right, didn't have to make them into a podcast. I've been going through a list of maybe twelve or fifteen movies you sent me a couple months ago, and most of them i'd heard of, maybe you've seen them, maybe had heard them mentioned before. There's one title in that list
that I had never heard of at all. It's a movie that we're going to talk about, Red Rock West, and I enjoyed this film immensely. I've seen very few things like it. It's honestly, surprisingly obscure. It didn't do particularly well. I think it lost money. And despite that fact, it's a very good movie with a honestly amazing cast. And so before we started recording, you mentioned how you came across it. Obviously I got it from your recommendation. But before we get into it, I just want to say,
this is a great movie. This is a movie where I won't say it having it spoiled ruins it, but you should go into this movie blind. You can find it on Amazon. It's like three bucks to rent it. I have recommended it to personal friends, people not on the internet and gotten universally positive reviews. Most people say the exact same thing. How have I never heard of this before? And that was awesome? So all I will say, if you don't want to have it spoiled, go watch it.
It's like ninety minutes, not hard to find, so Red Rock Quest good movie. But Andrew, I'm curious, right, how how do you find out about this flick?
Yeah?
So ninety three right is when it comes out. I'm pretty sure that I saw it, probably rented it based on the cast, and then forgot about it until many many I don't know, probably ten years later it showed up in when I did finally go back to college, I took a minor in film and I took this probably one of the best classes I ever took. Was it's just called film noir. So it was you know, orson Wells, Chinatown. It was the whole run through from a quasi academic level. And then Red Rock West was
in there. And that professor, you know, every once in a while, even in college, you get like a professor that you you can take from who's actually useful or.
Maybe even worthy of respect. At least in my.
Day, they would occasionally show up. And he pointed, he he kind of went through the movie within the you know, the context we were studying. And and again I should say like this was not a class that was all DEI. It was pretty much about narrative, it was about history, and it was about the actual genre of noir. And so for our audience, I mean that's maybe the first thing to understand.
Is it.
In all possible technical ways, it's a noir film, but it is set in a rural environment. It's set what in like small town Wyoming, right, They never I'm not well, I guess it's Red Rock. Maybe that's like a fictional a little town out there by Thermopolis or Dubois or whatever. But yeah, that's how I heard of it. And I mean, you anybody who likes film, you watch this movie and it's like, yeah, five for me anyway, it's like five
out of five. So I've never forgotten it. And then when you asked, you know, for some recommendations, I'm not sure why, because there's thousands of these recommendations floating around in my mind, but yeah, it just popped out, and I'm gratified to hear that you've recommended it. And you know, we're not alone that this is. This is a great little movie. Fantastic cast and it it's great in a couple different ways that I'll kick it back to you. I'm sure we'll get into them.
Yeah, it's really The cast is one of the movie's strongest parts. The soundtrack is quite good. It's a relatively sparse soundtrack. Most of the music except for really what you hear at the end is all through basically car stereos or in bars or in a bar. I guess you know, it's sort of naturalistically done. And the cast in this is Look, when I say some of these actors, you will have preconceived notions. So obviously leading man is Nick Cage. This is still when Nick Cage was a
real actor. He's a working actor. Now he kind of just apparently signs up for anything. But this is a very restrained Nick Cage performance. There's exactly one line where you get the Nick Cage freak out. This is around the time that he was in Raising Arizona, I believe, slightly before. I can't remember off the top of my head, but like he is an Academy Award winning actor at
this stage, and he does quite well in it. So Nick Cage plays a marine, former marine Michael Williams, discharged from the Marine Corps because he has an injury.
Right.
We don't really understand how he got this, but he's in dire straits, right. He needs a job, and in fact, the opening is him driving out in this awesome late sixties Cadillac out to an oil drilling site and we find out one of his buddies is working there, sort of trying to get him a job, right, So he fills out his application and the next thing we see is Nick Cage standing upside this trailer and the boss
is yelling at Michael. Williams's friend comes out the door and says, why do you tell him about your life? And Williams says they would have found out anyway. I don't like to lie. And we find out that characteristic of him, right, that he has a certain amount of character, a certain amount of honesty, And this is something that becomes important later in the film. His friend basically says, well, at the very least, can I spot you some money?
Despite the fact that we've established that Williams is down to very little money, he's pretty much almost out five dollars in his wallet. He says, you know what, No, I don't need it. So he's driving back into this town, red Rock. And as far as I understand that, there is no town of Red Rock, there is a like a national park or something or a site there named Red Rock, but it's it's a fictionalized kind of two
street town right in the middle of nowhere. And as he's driving in, it's a little scene, but he stops at this gas station, and this is an important moment of characterization because he walks in to a seemingly unattended gas station and he's calling around, you know, looking for
you the attention. And when he goes behind the counter, he notices the cash strawers open, nobody here, a lot of money sitting there, and you know, a revolver next to it, and he looks at it for a moment decides, you know what, I'm not gonna steal, and then, you know, half a beat later, the guy walks out and basically says, if you're looking for work, in the nearest town is red Rock. So Williams heads into Red Rock, and this
is where our plot kicks off. So he drives in, starts up at this bar, and the bartender, who is played by JT. Walsh, who you may know from Sling Blade that he was in Nixon and then maybe a few good men. I think that sounds right, so kind of a character actor. He's the bartender. And while he's there, he looks outside and he notices that Nick cage car has a tech his license plate on it, and he says, you know, well, are you Lyle from Dallas? And Nick
Cage sort of looks around. He says, well, I have a job for you, and so Nick Cage realizes, I guess he's playing Lyle from Dallas. When he gets into the back room and they shut down the bar, it's revealed that this bartender it's expecting a hitman, right, someone to kill his wife, and he's offering five thousand dollars and then another five thousand when it's completed. So obviously
Nick Cage is in sort of a predicament. His money problems seemingly solved, but he's been involved in this plot, so he sort of agrees to do it, and he heads out to see JT. Walsh's wife, who's played by Laura Flynn Boyle, who's probably best known for I think she was in She's In Twin Peaks and then also the classic comedy Wan's World and then let's be honest,
not much else after that. So as he's observing her, he sees this man's wife riding a horse round in the middle of nowhere, and she goes up to this horse trailer where or this is sorry, this trailer where one of the ranch hands is. They go in together, the assumption obviously being they're having an affair. This is why you know he wants to kill his wife. So he confronts her, right he sneaks into her house, and he basically says, look, your husband wants me to kill you.
I'm not actually a hit man, so what are we gonna do? And she says, you know what, fine, I'll double your money get out of town. So at this point, Mike Williams Nickcage, it's like, awesome, this is great. You know, I stole technically fifteen thousand dollars from two horrible people whatever. So he takes his money and he decided he's going to get out of town and I'll kick it back to you Andy. Once we get through this kind of inciting plot, because this is really when it sort of
picks up. Sure, but as he's driving out of town, we have this great scene where he can finally go to the gas station, you know, fill up on gas, has a bunch of wonderbread, a bunch of beers in the and the guy's like, oh, really, you're gonna spend one hundred and twenty dollars on all this and he's like, oh whatever, who cares because he's got fifteen grand in
cash right for defrauding these people. But as he's headed out of town, we see a car stopped on the side of the road and Nick Cage sort of moves to get around him, but the guy who's by this car stopped in the middle road basically jumps out in front of the car and Nick Cage hits him and
he goes up over the whole car, obviously injured. And we see another love with these kind of moments where Cage basically looks in the mirror and you can sort of see him going through the like there's nobody around. I can just leave, leave with my money and I'll be fine, you know what. He can't do it. So he takes this guy back to the hospital and goes
in brings him into the doctor. We see this sort of comedic moment, and this movie is not a comedy, but it is quite funny something we will mention multiple times between him and the secretary at the front, you know, who's trying to ask him all of these very specific questions while he is just worried about the man that he may or may not have killed.
Right.
So point is this is where this is sort of the inciting incident. This is what sets the plot in motion, and so Andy, I'll kick it back to you before we get into the kind of plot from there on.
Yes, a few things to note even up to there with respect to this, like rural noir, which I don't think had been done great deal. There are a few other examples that, you know, come to mind my mind, like Blood Simple, which was the Cohen Brothers first movie that's that's pretty rural and actually shares some of the kind of like narrative DNA with this movie, insofar as there's there's this kind of there's a bar and there's
an affair, and you know, there's cowboy boots. But this is distinctly like noir sorts of plot elements and behavior what I wanted to or what what what I thought of as we're kind of going through this inciting scene.
From the technical level, it's we're switching into like this classic nor thing of going from what you know into what you don't know you know, and this is often done symbolically or visually with you know, you have your your blinds over there next to you, Jay, it's like that slot that slotted light this place where like light falls into shadow, which may seem like, you know, sort of a frivolous thing, but I think that it's essential, you know, it's part of the medium, Like it's it's
a visual medium and it works this way. So right when we get this, I mean it's very it's like you said, it's it's it's it's not specifically funny, but it is hilarious.
See, And it's he's.
Got he's got like three groceries, three bags of groceries, and it's all just this terrible junk food. And but you can you feel like totally, I feel bonded with that guy, like, yeah, I have fifteen grand I'm loading up, I'm getting my ass is out of town. This crazy thing that I just touched on, and man, it's not even like you know, twenty minutes down the road and all of a sudden, the storm comes and so there's a lot of you know, rain falling. Visual conditions are obscured.
And this is where for me that noir thing kicks in. Like you thought everything was going one way, but all of a sudden we should mention too. The director, I I what is his name, Dall, I think, right, So this guy writes the script with his brother. I think he had one other movie before this one, which was maybe not a big hit.
He goes on to do a couple of.
I think he did the last seduction, Right, Yeah.
I think you're right, which is I have not seen but as apparently kind of a hit and he do he gets there's one called Kill Me Again, which was also like at the time, critically acclaimed, like understood, man, this doll guy is kind of going somewhere. He's got you know, he's a Val Kilmer's in that one. He's got Nick Cage here and he was sort of, you know, the man of the moment there for a split second.
But something in his career must have happened where he sort of goes under away from you know, the radar, and he but he pops up later evidently I hadn't actually tracked him until we decided to do this episode, and he's he's alive, and he's doing tons of work, I apparently in television, so that television may be very good. I wouldn't know, but I just wanted to bring him up to say this is for what for whatever you
know his other flops may be. I mean, he absolutely nails every aspect of and it's is it as good as the Cohens? I mean, this one I think is for sure. His management of all of the elements, from the acting to the visual and I wanted to, you know, ask you. I think it pops out when people watch it.
Like the plot is so good in terms of just it's delivering what you want, you know, it's holding back on the reveals like you don't necessarily I think if you're going to continue with them, you know, the kind of timeline explication. We're about to find out who ah who the bartender really is, right, and that's like one of these reveals. So that's that point in the movie. Like you say, this inciting instant, it immediately just sort of begins to mount. He's he's got this money, we
know people are hunting him. Now his moral conundrum has kicked in and he's he's done the right thing. Taken this this dude back to the hospital, and then I'll take it back to you, right, because that's when the cops show up.
Well, and there's one thing I forgot and this becomes relevant later but also sort of shows us, you know, Nick Cage's moral code in this is that he does one more thing I forgot about before he skips town. He sends an anonymous letter right to the shriff. Yeah, basically says, you know, this guy is trying to kill his wife. The hitman hasn't shown up yet. Look into it. This is not a joke, right, So he feels that, you know what, I didn't do it. I've taken the money.
At the very least, I want to let the authorities know so that this, you know, this woman isn't murdered. So this is the point where if you are interested in watching this film, leave and go watch it right where. There's no way to avoid spoiling it. Past this point. You should. This is a good movie. It's worth your time. So while he's there, of course, you know that the doctor is understandably you know, upset, you know. And as Nick Cage sort of looks in the back he hears
that this man is alive. He goes to leave, right, He's basically like, all right, you know, I gotta I really got to skip town. I gotta get out of here, like, let's leave. And as he does it, sheriff and two deputies show up, and it is revealed the sheriff and the bartender are one and the same. Right, the guy who owns the bar who tried to kill his wife is also the sheriff. So he goes to take him to jail in a very cool Ford Bronco. This is
actually a pretty great car movie. It's not like a focus of it per se, but if you're interested in, you know, cool old vehicles, there's a lot of them to be had. But point is and as they they drive out of the parking lot, Ryle basically says like, what are you doing? What happened? And he says, you know what, I'm so sorry, Mary, I'm not your guy. I'm not the hit man. The money's in my car,
you just take it, leave me. And this all goes away and he's having none of it, and we have this moment where he sort of jerks off the road and we it's sort of up in the air and is he gonna let him run? And what happens is he throws in the keys to the handcuffs and so
Nick Cage, you know, unclasps himself from the handcuffs. But what we see is basically the Sheriff's got a gun and he's sort of trying to fake an escape so that he can kill this guy present it as you know, stopping and escaped felon and wrap up loose ends that way, but Nick Cage gets away right, he smashes his hand in the door. They're running through the woods. Nick Cage has grabbed his revolver makes you know, shoots a few
potshots back at him. The other guy's got a you know, an old Winchester seven model seven hundred, just shoting at him through the woods. You know, they're sort of stumbling. We see the reemergence of Cage's bad leg.
Right.
He's desperately trying to run away as his leg is sort of giving out, and as the two of them are, you know, Cage is getting more distance, he sort of falls down this embankment back into the road and he's nearly hit.
Right.
There's this again sort of comedic moment where we see the bumper of the car come up right to his face as he's sort of laying on the ground and out of the car steps easily the best character in this movie played by by Dennis Hopper. Right, And we don't know Dennis Hopper's name yet, right, but he's this sort of gregarious, you know, southern guy.
Right.
He's driving a cool I believe it a black Buick, Right, another really cool car. Listening to I think Johnny Cash at the time. You've got a black cowboy hat, and he sort of, you know, picks Cage up. You know, He's basically says, like, you're you're lucky I was paying attention or I would be picking your brains out of my radiator. And he has this like incredible kind of unhinged charisma, and he says, you know what, I got
to drive you back. Cage is trying to get some sort of excuse why he doesn't want to go back into town, but this character by the Hopper, he insists, right. He basically says, now, I'll take you into town, and while they're driving in, it's revealed they're both former Marines, that this character is a former Force recon marine. Cage was, we find out in this conversation in Vietnam and a very prominent I believe this is a real event. I was not familiar with it. In case where an army
building was hit by a large explosive. Two hundred and seventy people died. And so we have this sort of back and forth where, you know, Hopper says, oh, you know, you're really lucky, and Cage basically says like, yeah, it doesn't quite feel like it, you know, because he obviously has a severely compromised leg. So this new character won't let Cage go without buying him a drink, and they're
right back at this same bar in Red Rock. This is part of what makes this movie kind of comedic is that no matter how desperately people are trying to get away from Red Rock, they end up basically back in this same bar, just due to increasingly absurd events. So now Cage is obviously freaking out because he's just escaped from the sheriff and now he's gone back to his bar. There's another guy working at it, so you know, his character buys him a drink and we find out
that this is Lyle from Texas. He has met the same hit man he was previously impersonating, and so when Lyle comes up to the bar, he basic says, hey, can you call the owner? And at this point Cage is realizing like, oh no, this is not good. I got to get out. So he goes to the bathroom after taking a shot of whiskey and realizes like he's got a run. So he I say, there's only one
Nick Cage freak out. There's a very minor one in the bathroom that if you're a ficionado of mister Cage's work like I am, you'll appreciate He kind of freaks out, smashes the glass, and then realize he has to go, gets out the window, and this is almost the exact same moment that the sheriff comes in quickly realizes what has happened. Lyle is here. The man who took the money is gone, so Lyle goes out to get him.
There's some cool guns in this. It's not, you know, a center of the plot by any means, but we see Lyle with a very cool I think it's like a Commander length Yama nineteen eleven. The Spanish ones. They look cool, absolute pieces of junk. My grandfather has one. I have never seen it actually work screen. A full nickel plated short nineteen eleven from a man with a cowboy hat is just cool. Right, yeah, So we see
them sort of give chase right. We don't exactly know where Cage is, and it's revealed that he is on the roof.
Right.
He basically realized he couldn't run away in the middle of Wyoming, so he's on the roof and he sees both the bar owner and now lyle chasing him. So he's in kind of a bad way. He's like, what am I gonna do? So he sees a pickup or sorry, a box truck getting ready to leave, grabs a board, you know, sort of uses it like a tight rope to get onto the roof of this box truck and
he's headed out of town again. Midway through this ride, right as he's on top of this box truck, the driver realizes he's there, and we get one of my favorite scenes where he's talking to this driver. Right he's hidden away on the roof of this truck. Driver pulled over, pulls out a gun, sticks it in his face. The driver's played by Dwight Yoakum. I believe this was his cinematic debut, highly underrated actor, more famous obviously as a
country singer. The closing to this is one Thousand Miles from Nowhere, which I believe debuted in this film before it hit the radio waves, and I think went to I think it was a top If it wasn't the top country song of the year, it was at least close to it. A very popular song. Huge, Yeah, honestly, kind of a good song. I'm uh, I'm good well, I won't say that that's probably docking my location too much, but point is.
Uh.
So they have a very funny interaction where he's got this giant revolver jammed and Nick Cage's face, you know, like, what are you doing on the top of my truck and he's like, uh, I was running away from my old lady, and by Yoakas having none of he's like, no, you're not, like what are you doing? This is absurd. They sort of go back and forth. It's like, sor ry, fine,
you can hop in the car. You could have just asked me for a And there's this great interaction back and forth where Nick Cage is obviously, you know, lying, he's making up this story. And as they're headed out of town, they go past the bartender's house, right this beautiful ranch out in the middle of nowhere where he's living, and Nick Cage of course realizes, well, the hitman is in town, Like, it's actually here. I've got a warn this woman. So he basically says like, hey, can you
pull off? And there's this moment where, you know, Yoakum's character, the truck driver sort of seeing through this, realizes what's going on and He's like, is she pretty right? Referring to he assumes that, you know, Nick Cage is trying to see this girl, which he is, maybe not in the same context that you know yoakum thought, and he goes, yeah, yeah she is. So he goes to meet her there. So we've gone through another couple scenes there, and he'll give you a chance to respond.
Well, I'm glad you brought up the guns. I wanted to ask you. I will he Lyle has a backup. He's got to hide out tiny little pocket. I wasn't able to. It looks like maybe the Browning twenty five. It could be I think does at Browning make a thirty two as well? That that shows up?
Yes, the uh oh it is a thanks to one of my favorite websites, the i am FDP Internet Movie Firearms Database. Yes, that is a Bretta nine to fifty jet Fire twenty five ACPO, which, by the way, Lyle is dressed to the nines in this. He's got his sort of like uh you know, like little like loop tie silver all in black red embroidery. And we haven't talked about him much because he hasn't had a ton of screen time yet. He steals the show such a
fun character. So point is right now that the plot has moved on, and so he Cage right comes to basically warn what's her actual name in this, I'm keep going by the actor's name, Oh, Suzanne Brown. Suzanne is the name of that. And one of the things I haven't quite mentioned is that when he met Suzanne for the first time, she thinks, you know, he's standing there with a gun, basically before she reveals that he's not going to kill her, and she just just slugs like
a triple for a vodka. Yeah, And this becomes an important part of her character. She is an alcoholist, yes, And so as Nick Cage breaks into her home for the second time to warn her again, hey look, Lyle's here, you've got to beat it, she is, I think drawing a bath, but again like three fingers of dark liquor. It just got bottles everywhere, And of course she's none too pleased to see him. She's like, look, like, what do you want more money? I don't have any more money.
Get out of here. He's like, look, you gotta go. The guy I was pretending to be he's actually here. So they sort of go back and forth he's like, what's going on here? She says, which is what we think to be true. You know, she inherited a lot of money. Her husband's looking to kill her to basically inherit all of her money. That's why he wants her gone. And as they're having this back and forth, Lyle shows up.
He's here, so Lyle sort of goes around the house, right, we see him looking for him, and we hear the bat's still being drawn. And as he goes into this second bathroom, right, there's kind of a fake out with the first one. Niki is standing on the other side of it with like a telephone or something. Statue and just a statue, that's what it is. It just brains him, just absolutely golf cocks him, lays him out, you know. They they grab his gun, right this this nickel plated
yama and they beat it. And as we see they're getting out, she's basically you know, he's like, hey, do you have a car. She's like, yeah, we got a jeep in the you know, in the barn.
So they go out.
He you know, goes out to Lyle's car, you know, rips out the distributor wires, just throws him right to try and get some distance, and yet again the slightly comedic moment. He goes up to the car and he's like, what do you mean it's almost out of gas, like you didn't fill up, and she's like, well, I didn't know I was going to be running for my life. So they have to go to a gas station. You know, they have I think between them twenty dollars, right, which
she just takes from him. That's where she finds out his name, right, He she asked to see his wallet and fill up on gas and they're like at the next town over right, they have not gotten out of danger, and she basically says like, all right, I need a drink. So they go back to this bar and she drinks heavily. They basically go through a whole bottle at tequila, and she starts spinning him this line about you know what,
this doesn't matter. We got to get out, you and me and just go to Mexico together, something that's sort of repeated, and he's not really having it at least at first till he gets some liquor in him. He's like, no, we gotta go, we gotta go, but she wins out. They end up spending the night together. Nick Cage is a good actor. I buy him in this role. I do not particularly enjoy seeing Nick Cage in a state of undress that is, in this movie relatively tastefully done,
but that sense. So they sort of, you know, spend the night together, and we sort of start to see the wheels fall off the relationship between Hyle and his employer, because he comes to basically says, you know what, they flew the coop knocked me out. If you want me to find them, it's gonna cost you, because I came in to just you know, do a quick hit and get out of town. I'm not here to you know, basically chase down these futures.
Partner's like, all right.
Fine, you know what, come back to my bar. I'll get you some money. We'll go so the next morning and be sure to interrupt me. And if I'm missing anything. I think I've got this lined out. They wake up together in this in this hotel room and she's like, look, we're gonna go to Mexico. We we're gonna need more money than whatever, twenty dollars minus a bottle at tequila, right Like, we're gonna need some cash, and I know
my husband he's got money hidden in the bar. So what we need to do is sneak back in, steal his money, and then we can get out and get out of dodge and go to Mexico. So Cage's character is obviously reluctant. He thinks this is a bad idea. He just wants to split, but she she wants the money.
So they're gonna They're gonna break back in. So they go in to this bar, right, they go to the back room, they pull the uh, you know, the safe out and grab the money, and we see there are some other documents in there.
Right.
We don't exactly know what these are as of yet. But as they've grabbed the money, classic kind of cinematic scene, they realize, oh wait, her husband and Lyle they're coming back. So they hide in the closet and as they come in, her husband realizes this has been disturbed because these papers aren't where they're supposed to be. The rugs messed up, the safe has been open, and I've said incorrectly that him and Lyle to gether. They're not. He is there to get the money for a while, right, But as
he's right there I believe. Does Lyle show up after the police the other officers do?
Yeah, yeah, Can I jump in here? Is it's about to jump in?
Course? Yeah.
So to to remember where we want to come back to this is when his deputies show up, and you get this hilarious scene where his own deputies, who have been at various times you know, dispatched well while juh the sheriff J. T. Walsh, you know, continues to do his little machinations in the background, keeping everybody confused as to you know, what what he's really doing, hiring a
hit man to have his wife killed. Meanwhile, his deputies have done a little digging on on the whole situation, right Like they they they found the cash in Nick Cage's car, and then I don't remember exactly how they piece it together, but.
They've did.
They've figured out that the sheriff has it. Well, one, they got the letter, right, yeah.
They got the letter. And also what we forgot to mention is the whole reason that Nick Cage is even arrested in the first place is because the man that he hit was found with two bullets in it. Right, So, now this has been linked to an attempted murder. It seems like this situation is spinning out of control because of this letter, and so the deputies are highly suspicious.
Yeah, and and so let's set it right there. I'll go back a little bit to say, for.
My money, as a long time moviegoer, I think that this character played by Laura Flynn Boyle, and you point out like she's so obviously an alcoholic. Unfortunately Laura Flynn Boyle turns out in real life. One of the reasons, like we don't really know what happens to her after like twin Peaks in this movie and a handful of others is I think that she's a degenerate like alcoholic in real life, Like she's really got some problems side
note there, but she does a pretty fair job. I thought of playing this classic and once again newir figure where Denganoux, who you know, she hatches this ridiculous idea of Mexico, you know, and sometimes in movies, this will be California, like we just got to get out of Oklahoma, Johnny, and we'll go out to California where everything is great.
And.
It's a great it's a great part of all the Kings met about exactly that there you get. California is where you go when the well runs dry.
There you go. And I think it's interesting to me.
Maybe maybe not the time to go deeply into it, but at some point in American history, you know, this becomes like foreclosed to us, and it's like, now we're going to go to Mexico, and it's kind of like this when I think of going to Mexico. I have been to Mexico. I'm sure you could do it up with many millions. But if I had enough money to actually I don't know. I don't want to escape America.
But personally, this is a funny element to me that you'd want to go to Mexico, like Mexico's no offense Mexicans. But it's pretty much a shiftole in my experience. If I had enough money, I would just go to Chile or I don't know, Norway or something and be a bumb. I would rather be a bum in Norway. I hear you breathing, go ahead.
Well, And it's funny. It's funny because this is actually a plot point as well in another movie that we reviewed, Country for Old Men. Yeah, great, that is the escape.
Yeah, and we we can't.
We may be the only two dudes who have ever figured this out. But and we've made this mention like this film Red Rock West shares DNA with several other films. But I think even when when I took the class on this, you know, I think we probably associated blood,
simple and stuff. But I've never heard or seen a mention of the DNA shared between No Country for Old Men and this film, which isn't just at the level of Okay, you have this main character who has some type of he's driven by this morality, and it's kind
of a naive morality. It's not entirely naive, but but you're like, you know, at various points, I mean, how many people we go back all the time with No Country for Old Men saying just don't take him the water, Just don't take the water out to this who's obviously a bad guy, he's a drug dealer.
Just let him die.
And of course the entire plot pivots on this internal you know, conflict, and you have this same idea over and over and over where Nick Cage's conscience is pulling him back in to do the right thing, whether it's you know, coming back to the ranch, to warn this woman twice that you know this guy's coming and you got to get out of here. He doesn't know her, he probably you know. But here again back to this
angu character. We can we could probably say this to the audience and they may guess, like, this woman turns out to be not a nice person as well, not entirely telling the truth. In fact, has not even touched on the truth throughout the entire movie, you know, much at all, and winds up being a very nasty person. And this is this ingenoux And that's a French word,
you know. I don't even know exactly what it means, but to me and to like film scholars or whatever, it is a figure, you know, I think it has to be female who is herself kind of she has agency, but she's also stuck in this weird world of men with power and guns and stuff, and she's always using her sexuality and oftentimes she's using alcohol. I would kind of like to see a film where maybe she uses something else besides alcohol, but for this film, it's super appropriate.
And that was about all I wanted to add. But we could go back to this moment that we talked earlier. Is pretty darn funny where the deputies are now kind of hauling in the sheriff.
Yeah, and I think it's I checked the chronology on this. Uh, what I'm pretty sure happens first is that Lyle busts in, finds them, knocks Nick Cage out, and looks into what the papers are, and what he basically finds out is that Suzanne and sheriff Sheriff Brown are not who they say they are. They're actually Kevin and Ann McCord, who are on the FBI's most wanted list for a massive
embezzlement heist. So all of a sudden, he realizes, like, there's way more money in this than there is in you know, this hit, Right, this is how he's gonna get paid. So what he does is he basically kidnaps the two of them, right, He's like, all right, great, I'll work something out with these two.
Uh.
This is really where we started to see the character of Lyle kind of go over the top. He's sort of just brancing around, you know, holding these guys at gunpoint. It is incredibly amusing. So Sheriff Brown comes back in or you know, Kevin, I guess is his real name, and he realizes that the situations has gone bad. But as we've mentioned, his deputies come in behind him and
have realized the situation. And one of the items that's found in here is a wanted poster for him and his wife, listing his real name, their crime, the reward for their capture. And so, as we mentioned earlier, this is kind of the final piece falling into place for these two sheriff deputies. So there's this again sort of funny moment where we see you know, Sheriff Brown sort of trying to you know, win these guys over with rhetoric. He's got this you know, huge high flying speech about like,
oh are you gonna believe these crazy people? Are you gonna take me to jail? I can get a lawyer, And the sheriff deputy just looks at and goes, yeah, we're gonna take you to jail. Until the FBI starts this all out. It's again sort of a comedic, you know moment, But point is he has been taken to jail. Lyle has has kidnapped our leading man in this you know, fem fatal and so this is where the movie really starts to ramp up pacing wise, Right, we are moving
towards the finish. So we get this sort of bizarre scene where they're driving in this buick. They're both in the back right bound up with chords, and we see that Nick Cage just smuggle a little pocket knife, right, so he hands it to this woman basically says, you know here, we can get out somewhere, and for seemingly no reason, h Lyle has been driving around with a bottle of whiskey, just taking swigs off of it.
Right.
They're they're talking again, very funny character the dialogue, and this is really good, and so actually he basically he pulls over next to this abandoned building and is kind of strutting around, and this is probably the part that feels the most like pulp fiction, as he's sort of strutting around with this empty, like basically crack house with graffiti all over it, takes a swig off the bottle, it kind of dumps the rest of it on the ground,
tosses a lighter over his shoulder, and the house goes up in flames. He walks out, and Nick Cage just used this little pen knife to free himself, and we see another moment of him basically returning where he has the chance on his own to run. He's not directly involved. Lyle doesn't want him. He's just looking to get out. But he looks back and he's like, I can't leave her here. And so at that moment of indecision costs him his freedom, as Lyle walks out basically says like, nope,
none of that. You're driving now. So he is next to nick Cage with a gun pointed at him. Right now, share TRF. Brown is at he is in jail. There are two deputies. The sort of main deputy gets a call, Hey, this old abandoned house is on fire. He decides to leave and go check it out. And this leaves one deputy all alone, and in a moment very reminiscent of a film we've already mentioned, No Country for Old Men.
He's here in this tiny, little, you know, one room jailhouse, you know, the cage in the back where they got the sheriff, and Lyle walks in. We don't know, you know, he doesn't know Lyle from anywhere. Lyle runs up and shoots him right So the deputy is dead, and so he goes to Sheriff Brown, who initially tries to sort of reason with him, tries to basically say like, oh, I'll double your money then, you know. Lyle basically says like, no, no, no, I know who you are. I know that you've got
all this money that you stole. And at least initially he offers him a deal. He's like, well, you know what, if you take me there, I'll split it with you, right, will be good. Then obviously it's heavily implied that's not what's gonna happen. Right, So, now the three of them
are are headed out of town. The deputy returns, sees that his you know that the captain is gone, and that you know that the your deputy has been shot, and he runs out in time to see this car sort of speeding away, and we get this great moment. And it's funny because Hopper plays a very similar character
to the one he did in Speed. This is the scene that perhaps the most overlap, and I initially would have thought because Speed is such a bigger movie, it actually came out afterwards, so right, if anything, Speed is a rip off of Red Rock Rest is what I'm trying to say. But in all seriousness, there's this great action scene where they basically drag race a train to try and get you know, across the tracks and lose the cops behind him. And Nick Cage is playing this
very straight. Well, Hopper's going nuts. He's like streaming, pounding the dash, waving a gun, waving another bottle whisky around, basically like shoving the gun in his face, saying, you know what, you better drive and they, you know, in classic fashion, just barely you know, kind of you know, scooch by. And now they're on the open road right driving out to this depositive of cash.
Uh.
There's a couple of scenes on the road that are relatively brief, but are are pretty fun.
Uh.
At some moment, I believe, when Lyle's occupied with the sheriff, he basically leans into Susanne or you know an whatever her name is, and basically says, look like, now you have this knife. I palmed it off to you. Lyle doesn't know that you have it. So when I give you a signal, right, you get your husband and I'll get him. Right, we'll sort it out that way.
Uh.
The while they're driving down again, Lyle's sort of chewing the scenery. It's maybe my baby part of this film is when they're all in the car together right driving out into the desert, and he basically passes the bottle around, hands it to Nick Cage. Nick Cage won't take it. He's like, well, what do you think you're too You think you're too good for us, You know that's your problem,
but you think you're too good for us? And Nick Cage's like, I'm not gonna take it, and Michael shoots his gun, shoots his own window out right right in front of Nick Cage's face to basically force him to take a drink out of this bottle. So they carry on.
It's revealed that the this location of the end of this movie, right at the location of all this cash, is this this cemetery, right, He's buried in the cemetery, and they, you know, I have to have to cut the lights on the car to sort of sneak past the caretaker of the cemetery. They go out, they dig up this box right with all the money in it.
And this is another part of this movie that's sort of comedic, is the amount of double and triple crossing that occurs already, but particularly in this scene, it's just sort of off the charts. So and you have been talking for a while. Do you want to take us through one just any reactions you have and and take us through the kind of final chapter of this movie.
Yeah, I will try. I wanted to point out this, go back to the moment where Lyle walks in and shoots the deputy. If people, you know, take our advice and check this out, pause it on that deputy before he gets shot, and then you know, get on your phone or whatever and go look at the character of the deputy in No Country for Old Men. I did this because it was so we hadn't even discussed it at this point, like what is this DNA? What's happening here?
Between these various crossovers, the two actors are almost interchangeable.
I wonder if the.
Cohens almost are doing some of this intentionally. There's so much likeness here. And last a little bit on this, we find out that Lyle we found.
Out early on.
They're they're shared you know, Semper five Marine Corps thing, and Lyle makes it clear that he's a recon marine and he's this you know, you know, something special that's been special operations, which again is that's what Sugur is sort of we're sort of led to believe that maybe, you know, I wanted to offer that up for for
folks like us who watch way too many movies. But yeah, going forward, the climax is brilliant and uh, there's a number of reveals where you have this basically a chess game where there are one or two guns in play. There's the pocket knife, and the box is has a lock on it, and so the sheriff and Lyle are going through this this kind of like cat and mouse game or a chess game to try and figure out
like how do we manage this? The guy who plays the sheriff, who's also we've learned, is this a pretty capable embezzler and and excise me bullshit artist along the way, kind of gets the drop on on Lyle. There's a gun in the box as well as a giant bag of cash, and it's a high point, right, I think, No, No.
This is actually a pretty obscure HK. It's actually a BP seventy really, which is a really super weird design. I know Pete will get mad at vif I say this, but I don't think they're particularly good kind of a weird anyway, that's that's a that's something for another time. But you may have also seen it in I think it was in I'm Not Finding Anything Else. Yeah, it was really kind of obscure gun, not in a ton of movies.
But anyway, well, I'm glad I asked, because I was I would have just like visually glossed it as as a high point. So once again, to your point, there are a number of just odd guns that show up in this uh in this movie.
Then that someone cared.
Yeah, I don't know who that guy was, but someone put way more effort into the kind of wors casting of this, I think than you'd expect.
So I'll go through this like pretty you know, not not with a lot of detail because it is the end.
I don't want to ruin it for fewears too much. But I really loved the number of payoffs.
That moment where throughout the movie Lyle has been digging at the Nick Cage character like you won't drink with me? What I'm you're you're too good for people, you know, And there's that moment where Lyle says something like, you know, there's a reason why you're here with.
All of us, because you are a loser.
Too you're a thief, which is well, it's kind of true, but I won't even give it away because the payoff for me where you know, Nick Cage does get the upper hand and then basically kills Lyle and turns around and says, you know what, I am better than you? Uh, I don't know that. That was my favorite moment probably in the whole movie. It's classic Nick Cage. It pays off this you know, this long like simmering weird tension be dead Lyle. Then Dennis Dennis Hopper, you're right, I
mean he really he. I don't know if you could get an award, but it's a brilliant performance where everything pays.
Off in the end. Yeah. I just thought that it all pays off too. It's not just like.
You know, pyrotechnics for for the you know, the great actor Dennis Hopper. It really pays off for the film, but kind of glossing over you know, the the like scene by scene, beat by beat climax, which is very good. It's really that last final moment, right there's this train that had the cops are coming by. Now if you know it's been sorted out, who's going to get the money to and the Angenoux character, the woman has a choice.
Nick Cage finally figures it out like I'm gone, like I'm leaving the money, the girl, the whole thing, and I'm running for this passing train in the night, and he does. The cops are the only thing you know that propel Laura Flynn Boyle forward. He once again helps her into the train and you know, she tries to double cross them one last time. But I'll hand it back to you, right, what did you think of there's I thought it was a great ending.
I did too, because we we sort of see in this situation where he is still acting in good faith to with this woman. He's like all right, like you know, I I saved you. We've got the money, like we're good now. And what we see is that she's grabbed Lyle's gun, which in this kind of complicated multi dimensional Mexican standoff which we don't have the time to get into, it's it's good enough. You should watch it has been.
He's dropped the magazine. We saw that happen, but we don't know, right is there still one in the chamber or not? And so she pulls a gun on him. He's basically like why why would why would you do this? Like, after all this we've gone together, would you really you know, kill me just for this money? And click, she pulls the trigger. Nothing in the gun, and he's at this point had it, So he takes the bag of money out the side of the train and just dumps it,
basically like we're done, and she jumps out. She goes to grab the money. So now he's you know, she gets arrested. We see the you know, the cherries behind her.
She's brought to justice and Nick Cage, as you know A thousand Miles from Nowhere by Dwight Yoakum, starts playing you know, the camera pans up to this beautiful mountain as the train you know, goes out into the sunrise, and he sits down and we see that he he looks into his jacket and one bundle of cash, right a thousand dollars has gotten wedged in his jacket, and we see him just look at the money and kind of shrug. And that's where the movie ends, right, Nick
Cage at least got something for his trouble. But yeah, I genuinely love this film. Uh, it was a in my mind, a sort of you know, Undiscovered jem h really not one you here mentioned, but a fun movie like it propels. There's very little downtime in it. It's competently shot, the acting is great, and it's you know, not a super bombastic, over the top film, but very very good, highly entertaining, and really kind of a great example of that, you know, sort of early nineties neo
noir in a non traditional setting. I don't think it did particularly well, largely because of how genre bending it is. You know, it's this sort of half comedy crime drama noir set in the West. You know, it's a little hard to explain, and doing some research on it, the studio had a really hard time figuring out what to do with it, right. They sent it to film festivals, where, of course it didn't do well at you know, high
society film festivals. They couldn't really advertise it, so it flopped, right, It didn't even make a quarter of its budget back. But it's a great film. I highly recommend it, honestly, Andy not to say it is not as good of a film as No Country for Old Men. Objectively speaking, there's not as much depth to it, but as far as a film that I had no expectations and really no familiarity with how surprised I was at the results.
One of the best sort of cult classics I think I've ever been recommended.
I'm glad to hear it.
I'm glad because that means you have great taste, which we already knew. But you know, last thing is you mentioned that propulsive there. It's really kind of a masterpiece in terms of writing and pacing and all that, like you're just off to the races and to the last beat. It delivers. So once again, yeah, great movie.
Check it out.
Yeah again, really enjoyed it a lot, easy to find, so everyone should check it out. Andy, thank you so much. I really enjoy our media analysis. It's one of those things where it's like it's just fun to talk about good movies. It's enjoyable, and so much of the like film analysis discourse, it's just so horrible and rotten that it makes you hate it until you sit down with the friend and you're like, oh, this is a ton of fun, and they do well. People like it. It's funny.
I get emails if I haven't done a movie review in three weeks, people get mad. But that said, man, where can people find you?
You know, same places. I'm on X and substack. If you go to X and do the link tree, all my stuff is in there. Thanks for mentioning that, you know you can grab the books.
Yeah.
I love doing this too, Jays, So anytime if the audience appreciates it, let me know.
I love to come back.
Definitely. Well, I have you on again soon to do another review of one of your books, book that I read a while ago, and I'll be honest thought I had already reviewed. We'll get that set up soon. Far my stuff The Jay Burdens Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere you listen to podcasts. It's what I do if you want to support the show, and I really do appreciate that. A couple bucks a month on Patreon, substack or gum Road get the episodes early in ad free. I know
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Do everyone know home?
Keep your head up well, I can't last forever.
Good night, But what's what's? It's Gary, Gary,