A “grim-faced” Alec Baldwin was seen walking through New York City on Wednesday, a few hours after skipping the world premiere of his controversial picture” Metal” in Poland,  , the Daily Mail reported.
The 66-year-old Baldwin was really denied entry to the Energa Camerimage global film festival’s launch because organizers claimed his existence would have been” to distracting.”
But it’s hard to imagine that the renowned thin-skinned Baldwin would want to sit through a screen of the Western video, surrounded by a crowd of strangers, critics and “rubberneckers”, curious to see the fallout of his position in the film’s dangerous production.
” It was a cold, rainy day in Toruń, Poland, as a packed theater watched Alec Baldwin take people” , , Vulture writer Nick Newman began his review , published Thursday. Newman summarized what’s then become Hollywood legend — how a possible, low-budget “geezer-teaser”, starring an aging movie and TV sun, became engulfed in” a vortex of tragedy but inconceivable”.
Three years earlier, the show’s Ukrainian-born cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, was killed after Baldwin pointed a firearm at her during a practice on the show’s cast outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Director Joel Souza was also hurt when the cannon went off, killing Hutchins.
Baldwin claims that the pistol fired because he pulled the hammer back but not the cause. Hutchins was charged with involuntary manslaughter despite the frequent” Saturday Night Live” host star’s claim that his death was a tragic accident for more than a year. The prosecution, however, finally decided to dismiss the case this summer on the grounds that they had not provided evidence.
The second a true bullet fired from a prop gun to kill Hutchins,” the picture was transformed into an image of disturbing curiosity”, Newman wrote. Baldwin, Souza, Hutchins ‘ father, Matthew, and some made the decision to go against conventional wisdom to finish the film. They expressed hope that a finished version of” Rust” would be able to honor Hutchins ‘ legacy and earn some money for her young son.
But at the movie’s world launch, it was “undeniable” that a certain percentage of people simply attended the launch as a way of “rubbernecking the tails end of a long, hard, outright-ignoble years-long saga”, Newman wrote.
And those people got in some rubbernecking, according to Newman’s review.
In honor of Hutchins, festival organizers asked the audience to stand for a moment of silence before the movie began. Then, they said,” We wanted people to just watch the movie on its own,” not as any tragedy or protracted legal proceedings. During these introductions, no one mentioned Baldwin’s name.
But as soon as” Rust” began, it became impossible for people to not think about what happened to Hutchins, according to Newman.
Set in the 1880s,” Rust” tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who accidentally kills a rancher and flees the law with his grandfather, an aging outlaw. As a Western, there is, of course, plenty of gunslinging.
” The first time a trigger is pulled in Rust, it clicks on an empty barrel, the second leads to a character’s accidental death, engendering a full-bore gasp from premiere attendees”, Newman wrote. ” While I did n’t take time to poll this at-capacity crowd, that reaction seemed less from deep investment in a just-started plot than some breath of acknowledgment”.
” Rust did n’t choose to echo its own tragedies”, Newman continued,” but they course through a film that is often compelling and capable, an appropriately unvarnished western tale about guilt, blame, family, law and devotion”.
Yes, Newman gave the film some props, explaining why it’s definitely a cut above other “geezer-teasers”. The pejorative, incidentally, refers to a recent genre of low-budget, direct-to-streaming action films, featuring older, well-known male actors like Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson.
Before Hutchins ‘ passing, Baldwin had high hopes for” Rust” as an entertaining and even artistic work. The Emmy-winning” 30 Rock” star may have seen” Rust” as a way to revive a career that was veering into the territory of “geezer-teasers” and , a failed network sitcom pilot , with Kelsey Grammar. Baldwin has been working on a potentially cringe-inducing reality TV show with his influential wife Hilaria Baldwin and their family of seven while they’ve been filming more recently, including cameos for” Saturday Night Live.”
However, Newman believed Baldwin’s performance appeared to struggle. His accent and the overall volume of his performance “wobbled from scene to scene” caused him to “often be off balance.”
Newman acknowledged that Baldwin’s performance may have caused him to have a problem. It’s “possibly uncomfortable watching him kill people in ways that are n’t apparent in this final cut,” Newman wrote.
As it stands, it’s not known whether” Rust” will ever show up in a movie theater or on a streaming service, Newman said. ” Whenever it emerges, audiences will find a work of salutary effect and simple pleasure saturated in morbid curiosity — strange monument, ugly footnote”, Newman said.
___
©# YR@ MediaNews Group, Inc
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
