After several years and enormous tragedy, the ill-fated Rust will finally be released on Friday.
And the Western’s writer-director, Joel Souza, has complicated thoughts on his creation — given the death of the movie’s cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was accidentally shot in 2021 by the film’s star, Alec Baldwin. After much debate, Souza and the cast and crew returned to finish the film.
“[Hutchins’ family] wanted it completed,” Souza told The Guardian. “I’d been repelled by the thought of going back, but [then] it started to appeal. And I couldn’t live with the idea of someone else doing it.”
That said, Souza quite naturally wishes he could go back in time and have never made the film. “Talk about the butterfly effect — I wish I never wrote the damn movie,” he said. “You think about the chain of events that started that morning [of the shooting]. Bad decision after bad decision was made.”
Prop armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and is serving an 18-month prison sentence. Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter over this role in the shooting, but the charges were dismissed in December due to mishandled evidence.
“We’re not friends,” Souza says of Baldwin. “We’re not enemies. There’s no relationship.”
Souza added that he hasn’t watched the actor’s recent cringey-cheerful family reality show on Max, The Baldwins, which has generated dismal ratings and audience scores. “I think I was busy hitting myself in the face with a frying pan that night [it aired],” Souza said.
All told, the resumption of filming was an emotionally difficult time. The bullet that killed Hutchins also wounded Souza in the shoulder. So the director literally had to resume filming the actor who shot him, however unintentionally.
“I was a mess going in and a mess coming out,” Souza said. “The crew carried me through. My family carried me through. Emotionally, I was all over the map.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s review of the film called it, a “no-frills Western, a classic story of cowboys and outlaws that revels in gorgeous scenery and the Puritanical moral dilemmas foundational to much of this nation’s mythology. The film is competently made and absorbing at times, but there’s a workaday quality that slows its momentum. It’s a handsomely made project, but a story about such a complicated set of characters should make us feel more strongly, and Rust struggles to accomplish that.” The review also praises the cineamatography, which was started by Hutchins and completed by Bianca Cline. “It’s not clear where Hutchins’ work ends and Cline’s begins, but the end result is harmonious and visually compelling. There are some impressive moments that play with shadows and silhouettes, and no shortage of dramatically staged gun battles.”
Starting May 2, Rust is getting a limited theatrical release and will be available to buy for $14.99 to stream online on Apple TV, Prime Video and other video-on-demand platforms.