Rust 2024 Film Review

Every so often there comes along a film that stirs up so much controversy for what happened during it's production that no matter what happens you just have to see it just to see if it was worth it. Well now we have another one of this films and it's one that is really hard to talk about without going over what happened that made this film so infamous four years before it even came out and so then join me as I review the film that even the films writer and director regrets making with the film in question being called simply just "Rust" enjoy.

Here is where I would usually disclose a brief summery of the films plot and give my overall thoughts and opinions on the plot of the film as a whole however the makers of this film decided not to give this film that much of a plot to speak off. As while yes there is a small plot about an old man kidnapping a kid from prison but even that plot just isn't strong enough to support an entire movie as the movie does noting with them outside of have them go around the countryside whilst avoiding the law and other such people and that's really it with that not being a good enough plot to support an entire feature length film as at best you can get maybe thirty to forty minuets out of that summery but nothing that's even close to being feature length and yet the makers of this film thought that this film was good enough to support an entire feature film this is a plot that really should have been fixed when the makers of this film had the chance to fix it as then they could fully justify having as long of a running time that this film does or they could have fixed right when the film was being developed as then they would have had the chance to fix any potential issues with the plot that came up during production but they didn't which either makes the makers of this film incredibly dumb or incredibly ego-centric as the first thing that you need to have when your making a film is a plot as that then gives your film a reason for existing and by not having that one basic thing it then robs this film of a reason to exist in the first place with the plot of this film not even being really rather entertaining and nor is it really rather engaging either in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Starring in this film is one of this films producers Alec Baldwin as Harland Rust and Patrick Scott McDermott as Lucas Hollister. Also starring in this film is Warcraft star Travis Fimmel as Fenton "Preacher" Lang , Frances Fisher as Lucas' Grand-Aunt , Jake Busey as Drum Parker , Josh Hopkins as Wood Helm and Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide star Devon Werkheiser as Boone LaFontaine.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. As while yes it would be very easy to condemn the acting from star Alec Baldwin as being bad the fact is that it just isn't but at the same time it's not all that good either it's exactly the same kind of acting that you expect from him at this point in time and that's really it with alot of this films acting being alot more better then what it really had any right to be as by all rights the acting in this film should have been really bad but all of this films actor manage to turn in performance that are nothing more then OK at best which for newcomer Patrick Scott McDermott is better then expected as nobody would have expected a great performance from him and yet here he is giving us a solid performance albeit one that won't be winning any kinds of awards with it being clear that this films writer and director Joel Souza not really having a clue on how to direct his actors and as a result of that is the fact that alot of this films actors do feel unsure of themselves and have no idea of what kind of performance to turn in in this film with the acting that's in this film not really being heled by the fact that this films script is just so bad as it gives none of this films actors absolutely nothing to work with interms of what it is that there respective characters personalities are even meant to be in the first place which is something that really does harm the overall quality of the acting that's in this film.

For some strange reason even this film is an independent film and was always going to be such it has a budget of around eight million American dollars. Which is something that you don't really see on screen anywhere at all during the film itself as this is a film that very easily could have been made for one million American dollars and it would exactly the same as it does now as this film mostly shot on location and there are no VFX being used in the film and so there really was no need for this film to have that high of a budget as none of it shows on screen with the film coming across as looking like an expensive show from The CW and nothing like a feature length film yet if you compare this with this films like The Hateful Eight or even The Crow for that matter both of this film yes they had high budgets but you also saw all of the money for those films on screen and because of that both of the films came off looking all the more better because of it where as here the film does look very cheaply made as you don't see where any of this films budget went to and when your budget is eight million American dollars then you should see it on screen as that is a budget that would make a film actually look like a film and yet here that's just not done as there's nothing shown to us on screen that let's us know that it had that high of a budget and that is something that does make this fil look like an episode of a TV show then it does a feature length film with this small budget no doubt being done because of the fact that the studio behind this film wanted a guaranteed hit and having a film with that budget play in theaters should have been a home run as it would have made back that budget and then some within a week or two tops.

Sadly just like with the 1994 version of The Crow there is no way to talk about this movie with that talking about THAT accident. As this was the film not only saw this films writer and director get injured after a firing incident but it also this films cinematographer Halyna Hutchins tragically lose her life after a prop gun was fired by star Alec Baldwin this incident is one that shouldn't have happened as going by all of the reports on the films Wikipedia page it does seem like all of the safety precautions that might have been in place before the accident where followed however what is known is the fact that alot of the crew had walked out that day with them saying that they were told to leave the set but it's not known who it was that told them to do so so for all we know it could have been one of the producers or it could have been someone at the studio it's also known that this film armour Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced for eighteen months back in 2021 and if anybody is going to ever really know what happened with that gun and who it was that put in the bullet that killed one person and injured another it's going to be her as she would have been one of if not the last person to see the weapon in question before the accident with this accident being a huge call for Hollywood to stop using real guns on set as both this and the Branden Lee accident cost two people who were in the prime of their lives the chance to reach old age and while it would be very easy to do what everyone else is doing and blaming Alec Baldwin for the accident which does make sense as he was a producer on this movie and he was in charge of hiring Hannah Gutierrez-Reed that doesn't mean however that he personally loaded the gun hurt one person and killed another.

To give you an idea of just how bad this film is even it's writer and director Joel Souza has even spoken of his regret of even writing the movie in the first place. With him stating in a 2025 interview with The Guardian that “I wish I never wrote the damn movie.” with this being one of the few times that a director has openly and willingly spoken out against his own movie before it it's even come out which is telling as you can tell from the interview that he was rightfully a mess when the film did resume production sometime later with even saying that he still goes over that day fateful day in October over and over again with him recalling that it was a day full bad decisions being made left , right and centre which does say that he knows now that the movie is bad and had known it since the film restarted production but at the same time he does speak very highly of getting the film made with him stating in that same interview that when the movie was first being developed agencies would throw out every male name that they had on their books because women just don't sell westerns and so he went and only looked at women for a lot of roles in the movie something which did pay off as star Frances Fisher and while the film will never be a hit it won't be because of the fact that the film has a woman in a leading role it will due to two things the first being the incident that is now forever linked with this film and the second being the fact that westerns just don't make that much money at the box office to being with with only a small handful of them being hit films and even then it's not by that much.

While this film is meant to be all about redemption none of that is shown in the final cut of the film as Harlen Rust himself who is meant to be the good guy of the film instead comes across as being the films bad guy. As we see him willingly and forcibly kidnap a young boy from jail and force the kid to go across the country with him for no reason all of which does make him the bad guy and yet the film expects us to feel sympathy for him because he himself lost members of his family which just doesn't work as two wrongs don't make a right as while yes he might have been kidnapping Lucas for the right reasons in this case it was stop to him being hanged the kid was more then ready to right the wrong that he himself committed with it only coming as redemption because of the fact that Harlen wanted to be redeemed but not everybody is like him as some people like Lucas who yes did commit his crime on accident didn't need to be redeemed as the film goes to great lengths to show us why we should about him as a character and why he genuinely is a nice kid and a good kid at that where as with Harlen we get none of that as we see him openly killing people sometimes even innocent people just to get what he wants and that's not how you go about getting redemption as that's how you go about getting a bigger target on your back then what you already with characters that are tracking them down and trying to get Lucas away from Harlen as they are right to do are now being treated as the bad guys even tho alot of what we see them do is something that a good guy would do all of this makes it look like the makers of this film had no message to the film but when THAT accident happened they forced together a message of redemption despite none of that being shown in the final cut of the film.

Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly two hours and nineteen minuets and fifty one seconds. Which is such a long running tome for this film to have as this film really doesn't have alot of plot there to really cover that amount of running time with it being made all the worse when you take into account that this film also doesn't use it's running time all that wisely either as not only is the plot of the film so very thinly drawn out that it might as well not even be there but the films characters aren't that well developed either with us the audience not really being given a reason to care about of this films characters and while usually this would be because of the fact that the character are just the straight forward good guy and bad guy characters and there we have to like the good guys and hate the bad guys here because of not only what happened behind the scenes of the film but also due to what's being shown to us in the film that was never going to work either and therefor some of this films running time really should have been dedicated to telling us more about any of this films characters as that would have given us a reason to care for them and to want to see them make it out of this alive and in piece but because the film just straight up doesn't do that we now left with a bunch of characters that aren't really that well developed and feel alot more like cardboard cutouts of characters instead of actually being three dimensional characters in their own right as they are just that badly written when they should have been alot more well developed if the makers of this film wanted us to actually like the characters that they wanted to us to like and to hate the characters that they actually wanted us to hare as well but I really will admit that this film does have some really painfully bad pacing to it tho.

So now then as this is a drama that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual drama that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual drama that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. However tho that's also the problem as this films drama isn't all that god either with it being due to the fact that the film doesn't take the time that it really should have done to really et us get to know these characters as then when the characters do have a big dramatic moment not only would it work really well for those character but also us the audience would feel it alot more because of the fact that we've had that extra time needed to fully understand just where it is that these characters are coming from and while showing us Harlen and Lucas bonding over there trip across America was nice and all with the whole being really well shot that doesn't mean that the more dramatic moments between the two characters work as they really don't with it being hard to say just what the best dramatic moment was in this film as there all just so badly done with those moments being something that should have been fixed very early on into the initial production of the film as this film is meant to be a drama an therefor if the drama elements don't work as well as they are supposed to do then guess what happens the whole film just falls in on itself and that's exactly what happend here where as if the makers of this film did take the time that they really should have done to let us get to know these characters then the films more dramatic moments would not only work but could therefor work really well as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

Overall while Halyna Hutchins own family might want to watch this film something they themselves openly stated in a 2025 interview for People . Com with own her mother even being quoted as saying "I watched my daughter's stunning film twice. I was so happy for the success of my daughter because it was filmed so beautifully, I would want everybody to watch it because it was the dream of my daughter and she would want people to see it, I like the film. I want many people to watch it, and I would want more people to remember her for as long as they can." however this film still isn't that good of a film this is despite it being very beautifully shot and with there being alot of effort quite clearly putt into it in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 4.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys an girls and and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get images really from this very film being the really great Google Images this is really because of the fact that really all of the images that I really indeed got and really used from the really great Google Images are all really high quality really with all of the images that really are all and of course really currently up and on the really great and the really solid Google Images really are all being really fairly high in quality and as well as them all really being fairly high in definition and just to clear I don't for obvious reasons condone what went down during the making of this film my thoughts on this film are just on this film alone.