Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The first trailer for Alec Baldwin’s “Rust” — the Western film made infamous by the fatal on-set shooting of its cinematographer — was released Wednesday. The dark movie trailer shows Baldwin’s gunslinging character on the run with his grandson, who has been sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher. “Some things in this life you can’t get back,” says Baldwin’s character in one scene.
In real life, Baldwin was pointing a gun toward cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal in New Mexico in 2021 when the weapon fired, killing her and wounding the film’s director Joel Souza. The Hollywood star was accused by prosecutors of violating gun safety rules, but his involuntary manslaughter trial collapsed last year over withheld evidence. Both Baldwin and Souza returned to finish the movie, on another set in Montana. It will now be released in limited US theaters on May 2 by tiny indie distributor Falling Forward Films.
Featuring a tombstone, a hanging and several shootouts, the trailer is accompanied by the sound of a foreboding thunderstorm, intense music, and ominous dialogue. There are frequent shots of characters in silhouette or with their faces partly in shadow. Violence of all kinds — gunfights, beatings, brawls in the mud — is a clear motif. The trailer concludes with a standoff between gunmen in a small dusty room, eerily reminiscent of the scene in which Hutchins was killed. “Heaven ain’t waiting on either one of us,” says Baldwin, before the men draw guns on each other.
The film has already received its world premiere, at a Polish film festival in November. Introducing the film, Souza said he had been “on the fence” about completing the movie, but was convinced to finish upon learning that Hutchins’s husband wanted her final work to be seen. Hutchins, a former journalist from Ukraine who grew up on a Soviet military base, was considered one of the industry’s rising stars. Baldwin did not attend the premiere, and it is unclear what role he will now play in promoting the film’s release.
© 2024 AFP
