Three and a half years after an accidental on-set shooting killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, Rust is arriving in select theaters on May 2. The western will simultaneously be available to watch at home via video on demand. Some in the industry had questioned the decision to finish the film after star Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun while rehearsing a scene in October 2021, killing Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza. But production resumed in 2023, after the Hutchins family settled a lawsuit with producers. Hutchins’s widower, Matthew, became an executive producer, while Bianca Cline took over as cinematographer. After filming wrapped, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison, while a separate case against Baldwin was dismissed.
That weight hung over Rust’s 2024 premiere as a centerpiece at Camerimage, a Polish film festival spotlighting cinematography. The November 20 event opened with a moment of silence for Hutchins, Variety reported, and a speech by her friend Rachel Mason, who called Rust “a very misunderstood film.” Matthew Hutchins did not attend, while Baldwin was not invited. Variety characterized the reaction to the film as “polite,” noting that “a fair amount” of audience members left before the credits.
So far, critics have been struggling to separate the horror of the production with the movie onscreen. “Rust didn’t choose to echo its own tragedies, but they course through a film that is often compelling and capable, an appropriately unvarnished western tale about guilt, blame, family, law, and devotion,” Nick Newman wrote for Vulture. Below, more reviews of Rust.
“Baldwin is often off-balance: His accent and the overall volume of performance wobble from scene to scene; the relationship with McDermott’s Lucas veers between affection and disinterest. Schedules chopped apart by 18 months and one death are a fair guess for accounting. Maybe it’s just uncomfortable watching him deliver numerous kills with a gun not unlike the one in a forever-infamous still from a scene that’s nowhere to be found in this final cut.” —Nick Newman, Vulture
“The fact is, the discomfiting sight of Baldwin firing off pistols during the obligatory gunfight climax (after which the movie continues for a truly stretched-out denouement) isn’t really worth the long sit; it makes Rust feel ghoulish in addition to dull. In an equally uncomfortable paradox, Halyna Hutchins is the movie’s saving grace. Without her work, it wouldn’t be worth a look at all.” —Jesse Hassenger, The Guardian
“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.” —Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter
“Halyna Hutchins’ dusk-and-sunset cinematography, abetted by the work of Bianca Cline, may be the best thing about Rust; the film has a moody sensuality to it. But as written and directed by Joel Souza, the tale the film is telling comes down to Rust and Lucas stopping at one place and then another, never settling in long enough to have those places mean much […] Will the offscreen tragedy that now defines Rust make viewers curious to see it or turn people off? Either way, those who seek it out will find that the movie ‘delivers’ without ever becoming an adventure to remember.” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“There are uncanny echoes of real life in Rust: That an errant bullet and an accidental shooting death spur the main plot of the movie is remarkable, and the tale features several characters having to deal with the consequences of their violence. (Souza took out the scene that was the setting for Hutchins’ death.) Like The Crow or Twilight Zone: The Movie, Rust is a film that’s forever tied to one fatal day. It’s not fair or perfect but finding beauty amid tragedy is something.” —Brian Truitt, USA Today
“Mediocre and often uncomfortable to watch; forever tainted by tragedy. Completing Rust and releasing it was a massive error in judgment.” —Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
“Cobbling together ideas from other, better movies, Rust isn’t original enough to be a must-see, but it didn’t deserve to be canceled because of an accident, either. Mr. Baldwin has been largely absent from the screen in recent years, and this effort is a reminder that, to use a word often applied to Harland Rust himself, he remains formidable.” —Kyle Smith, The Wall Street Journal
“We cannot pretend that Rust is just another movie, and as such easily judge it by the simple act of watching it. Not if we know anything about it, that is. […] If we were able to watch Rust free of context, it would just be another western. A good one, granted; not a proper classic but involving and handsomely presented.” —William Bibbiani, The Wrap
“Rust is most moving simply because, in its grand vistas and tender campfire and candlelit moments, it suggests that Hutchins had a bright cinematic future. It’s a shame, then, that her final work was on a ho-hum genre throwaway that’s beneath her considerable talents.” —Nick Schager, The Daily Beast