Movie Reviews
‘Rust’ Review: Defined by Tragedy, Alec Baldwin’s Cursed Western Offers Halyna Hutchins’ Story a Small but Necessary Sense of Closure
When cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was inadvertently shot and killed by a live round on the set of “Rust” in October of 2021, it seemed unfathomable to me that production would ever be completed — let alone that I would be tasked with reviewing the finished product one day.
“Twilight Zone: The Movie” and “The Crow” were both released in spite of similar tragedies (in addition to more recent examples like “American Made” and “Deadpool 2,” whose stunt performer deaths sparked considerably less attention), but that was before the internet had so thoroughly flattened every film into the context of its own creation. The horror took on a life of its own when second assistant camerawoman Sarah Jones was fatally struck by a freight train on the first day of filming “Midnight Rider” in February 2014, and the Facebook group that crew members started to oppose resuming the shoot had swelled to more than 10,000 members by April of that year.
And what happened on the set of “Rust” caused such an instant firestorm that most of the film’s production team — huddled together in a tent as police and medical personnel began to address the situation — first learned that Hutchins was dead by reading about it on their phones.
By the time the sun went down that day, “Rust” had become inextricable from the calamity that had occurred in a small New Mexico church on the 12th day of the film’s production. And while armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed has since been convicted of involuntary manslaughter for her role in the accident, the enduring mystery as to why a live round was loaded into that weapon — and the persistent question of star/producer Alec Baldwin’s culpability in firing it — has only made it more difficult for the movie to escape the dark shadow cast by its production.
“Rust” was completed for that very reason.
In a bid to create some closure of their own, much of the original cast and crew reunited in the spring of 2023 to finish what they had started 18 months earlier. Some only agreed to do so at the direct urging of Hutchins’ husband, who received an executive producer credit as part of a settlement, and insisted that finishing the movie was the best way of honoring his late wife’s memory and dedication to her craft.
In that light, whether or not “Rust” is a good movie would seem to be irrelevant; a masterpiece wouldn’t be “worth” the loss of Hutchins’ life, and a disaster wouldn’t make her death any more senseless than it was to begin with. Still, I can’t help but feel as though reviewing the film — a film that’s about to be dumped into a handful of theaters in tandem with its low-profile release on VOD — is a critical step in the project’s transition from a cursed production to a lasting monument.
I emphasize the purpose of reviewing “Rust” in part because there’s so little else of consequence to say about the movie, a competent but uncompelling Western whose story is saddled with the unfortunate irony of being about an accidental shooting. The triggerman is a 13-year-old orphan named Lucas Hollister (Patrick Scott McDermott, making the most of this grim opportunity), whose younger brother depends on him to protect their late parents’ Wyoming ranch from wolves and other predators. One fateful morning in 1882, Lucas aims his rifle at a four-legged trespasser, only to hit a human villain hiding just over the ridge. The law holds the boy accountable despite his lack of malice, only for Alec Baldwin — of all people — to save Lucas from a noose by murdering all of his jailers.
The two fugitives make a break for the Mexican border: young Lucas and Harland Rust, a legendary outlaw who also happens to be his maternal grandfather. Harland has never met the kid before, and — underneath his cartoonishly gruff exterior, and layers of lily-gilded dialogue like “You tell any son of a bitch who comes after me that he will shake hands with the devil himself” — it’s clear that the old man is eager to make up for lost time, even if Lucas just wants to get home to his little brother.
And so the long-estranged relatives trek across a rugged sweep of the American Southwest, the hostility between them (very) slowly thawing into something that resembles love as they elude bounty hunters and have campfire heart-to-hearts. Those conversations largely boil down to Harland saying things like “This ain’t no game, boy,” and “There’s alive and there’s ain’t — try to focus on the former,” but even the most derivative aspects of Souza’s script resonate with an inescapable awareness of life’s cruelties. While Hutchins’ memory is obviously most palpable in the movie’s sweeping vistas, backlit interiors, and dusky skies, it’s hard not to feel her presence when sheriff Wood Helm (an effective Josh Hopkins), hot on Harland’s trail, laments the random illness that has befallen his own son.
Much of Hopkins’ performance is wasted on the lopsided “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” triangle — completed by a devil-eyed Travis Fimmel as ruthless bounty hunter Fenton “Preacher” Lang — that needlessly warps “Rust” well beyond the two-hour mark, but every second of bloat is an extra opportunity to savor the beauty of a film that only exists to be looked at. Hutchins lensed a relatively small fraction of the footage that appears in the finished edition of “Rust,” as several actors had to be recast and their scenes reshot (the church scene was scrapped altogether), but co-credited cinematographer Bianca Cline has honored her late colleague by adhering to the details and lighting choices left behind in Hutchins’ notes.
As a result, the footage is not just impressively seamless, but also beautiful throughout. The film’s digital gloss dovetails with the rustic elementalism of its genre, whereas so many other recent Westerns have forced those two aesthetics into direct confrontation with each other. Clunky as “Rust” can be when its script tries to navigate how the regrets of one generation might seed the hopes of another, the film’s photography creates a nuanced conversation between the heartbreak of the past and the promise of the future. In this case, that promise will remain eternally unfulfilled.
“Some things in this life you can’t get back, I reckon,” Harland laments. It’s the one truth that “Rust” conveys all too well.
“Rust” is now playing in theaters and on VOD.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — In this episode of 8News Reel Talk, digital producer Julia Broberg is joined by anchor Deanna Allbrittin and reporter Allison Williams to talk about “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:
Deanna: ★★★★.5
Allison: ★★★.25
Julia: ★★
To watch more livestreams and digital video content, head to the WRIC+ Originals page. You can also watch full on-demand videos on your smart TV using the WRIC+ app.
Billie Eilish fans prepare yourself, the much talked about secret project has finally arrived on the big screens!
Billie Eilish has always been about intimacy over artifice, but her latest concert film takes that to a visceral new level. Co-directed by Eilish and James Cameron, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) manages to bridge the gap between a massive stadium show and the quiet grit of life backstage.
The film starts 18 minutes out from the show and builds the tension until audiences are literally folded into a box with her. Being taken under the stage, passing fans who have no idea she’s inches away, sets a tone of total immersion. What makes this film different is the balance between the spectacle and the behind-the-scenes reality. We see the creative shorthand between Billie and James Cameron as they chase what she calls the “best kind of sensory overload”.
The film is very much fan focussed, with the sound mix being so specific that you can hear individual fans singing along in sync with the visuals.
There are so many standout moments, the handheld camera work during “Bad Guy” that gives a dizzying POV of the band, and the chilling minute of silence Billie requests from the crowd to record a vocal loop.
The film captures her unique stage presence. Influenced by rap culture, Billie refuses to have anyone else on stage, unlike many female artists that use back up dancers. Billie can hold the entire stadium in awe by herself which is incredible to witness, until Finneas joins her for a beautiful, emotional piano set.
Between the high-tech visuals and the “Puppy Room” (where she keeps rescue dogs for staff to decompress), the film feels incredibly personal. While the film doesn’t give us any new insights into Billie, Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) is an enjoyable experience that elevates the tradition concert film.
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