Halyna Hutchins was the cinematographer for the movie “Rust”, a Western film featuring an outlaw trying to save his 12-year-old grandson from execution for murder. Hutchins's firearm-related death occurred in October 2021 during filming when Alec Baldwin, the film's star and co-producer, discharged a prop gun that was believed to be free of live rounds. Hutchins was killed and Joel Souza, the film’s writer and director, was injured from Baldwin’s Gun. Two years later, Matthew Hutchins, with the title of producer from the film's widow, allowed filming to continue.

Baldwin, along with other significant figures involved with “Rust,” encountered both civil and criminal accusations, yet none were officially charged, aside from the first assistant director who was given unsound charge of the firearm guilty of unsafe handling of a firearm and the armorer sentenced to 18 months for involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case was dropped because the prosecution’s and the police’s decision to “intentionally and deliberately withhold evidence” which was likely to support his defense was deemed unreasonable.

This one is a bit unique to start with. “Rust” isn’t just another film. It has been added to the list of productions that cost lives. Hutchins’s wide-format cinematography richly features silhouettes, flares, cigarette smoke, and landscapes that render men and horses into mere dots. Her work stands on its own but, even so, showcases a fierce command of iconic images and textures from Western cinema, from the smoke and amber-drenched interiors of ‘McCabe and Mrs. Miller,’ the lords of mountains from John Ford, the small-town gritty roads of Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill, as well as the much-referenced final shot of ‘The Searchers’ (twice quoted in ‘Rust,’ once with a woman in the foreground).

The film's best attribute is its cinematography. “Rust” is a saddle bag full of scenes and moments from great westerns, or rather, “emblished” with other great moments. But even if “Rust” had ended up a stone-cold remarkable masterpiece, it still wouldn’t have been worth a single human life because, no one should die for art unless it is their choice.

“Rust” starts with a 12-year-old Lucas Hollister (Patrick Scott McDermott) single-handedly managing the family farm and taking care of his older brother after the death of their mother. After that, it morphs into a brutal cross-country road trip and family bonding narrative when Lucas, after getting sentenced to death by hanging for accidentally killing a neighboring farmer who had been bullying his brother, is saved by his outlaw grandfather Harlan Rust (Baldwin) and taken on a journey to Mexico.

This primary storyline is mixed with two others. One of them depicts the local sheriff, Wood Helm (Josh Hopkins). He is already in the midst of an existential crisis (having lost his faith in God due to his son’s terminal illness) when Rust breaks into the jail to rescue his grandson, killing two of Wood’s deputies in the process.

"I learned long ago that there ain't a God; would have been nice to have been wrong," Wood says to his best friend, the local saloonkeeper (the always-excellent Abraham Benrubi, formerly of "E.R.", now stepping into his character actor phase). It is difficult to imagine how much more engaging “Rust” would’ve been had Hopkins played the title character considering how effortlessly charismatic he is, and how he so convincingly embodies his era.

The side plot centers around Rust and Lucas and the most sinister bounty hunters looking to claim the $1,000 reward for capturing them. If you have seen “The Night of the Hunter” once in your life, or are at least familiar with its stills, then you would know that the self proclaimed Harry Powell, easily the most unrepentantly evil figure in film history, has been unceremoniously airlifted from his movie and inserted into “Rust." Fimmel (“Vikings,” “Raised By Wolves”) gives a performance that is far more nuanced than the movie merits, portraying the Obsessional Preacher – a figure dressed in black who quotes the Bible, performs gruesome public displays of faith, and is obsessed with servitude and spiritual torment. Unlike his movie counterpart, he is not clad with LOVE and HATE on his knuckles. It’s possible he hadn’t claimed the reward yet.

And now regarding Baldwin the actor: It’s quite strange that “Rust” logically seems to be the project that nearly cost him his career because even though he and Souza came up with the storyline together, Baldwin as a gun-slinging, grizzled elder-part figure simply didn’t work Baldwin as a tough old gunfighter was not good casting. They have a line establishing that Rust grew up in Chicago, presumably so you don’t wonder why the character doesn’t seem like a natural-born country man. Regardless, Baldwin does not possess the face, voice, or most crucially the vibe for this type of picture. What is required is an actor who when a boy asks: “Who are you?” he is is permitted to say, “This ain’t no game, boy. I say we ride, we ride. I say we eat, we eat. I say we sleep, we sleep. That’s who I am,” without drawing your eyes to the back of your head in disbelief.

There are other missteps and failures to deliver. The clothes and hats worn looked as though they had come straight from the internet.

The action pours out in a number of neatly self-sufficient scenes and sequences that frequently exude a theatrical aura—and not only because the dialog is delivered as if it is taken from a book, sometimes bordering on “performers’ perspective”. It seems that “Rust” has an identity crisis: is it trying to be a gritty indie drama swarming with tough, authentic people, or a polished Hollywood spectacle with the emotional cap reveal montage for every leading actor and the ability to send a man soaring backward with a revolver like he has just been punched by the Terminator?

There are several scenes that can qualify for short films in their own right. A lot of them include Frances Fisher, Eastwood’s ex-lady and the sassy dame from “Unforgiven,” portraying a well-mannered stranger who refers to herself as Lucas’s aunt but comes off as vague and utterly unsympathetic. Furthermore, there is the climactic confrontation towards the end that allows the brilliant character actor Xander Berkeley to step into the shoes of an eccentric, cynical, and devastatingly hilarious bully that would belong in an Eastwood Western.

Sadly, the three plots and their protagonists were not worked on deeply enough to warrant their entire inclusion, save for the one about Rust and Lucas—and even that one would have benefited from cutting out some of the climactic near death escapes. (It runs two hours and eighteen minutes and feels like more.) McDermott is superb as the loving, impoverished character he plays of big-hearted Lucas who had to grow up too quickly. Such a weight from his shoulders, and the burdens of all paramount suffering are real. He feels smart and cynical enough to retell the old prairie adage, “Life is suffering,” and to expect one would end up talking like a rat. But assessing this film’s merits and demerits without the actual disaster intruding is nearly impossible. Such a calamity renders the accounting devoid of purpose.

Baldwin has never offered an apology for the life lost on his watch, showing no hint of sorrow or empathy because he framed the death of Hutchins as a tragedy that happened to him. Subsequently losing sleep and work were ‘unfortunate side effects’. Now mix in that callousness and the narrative of the project which relies on an ‘accidental’ shooting as well as non-stop gunfire interspersed with weapon loading instructions. Baldwin’s words to The Guardian were, “I wish I’d never written that movie.” He added, “I was busy hitting myself in the face with a frying pan.” I had not seen Baldwin’s unscripted series with his wife Hilaria about the family grappling with the aftermath of the shooting.

Perhaps at some point, after the last echo of that fatal shot “Rust” transforms into a movie rather than a crime scene, it will be assessed with more detachment and less scrutiny. That day is a long way off.