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6.3/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.3/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Nevada remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you're into dusty 1930s B-westerns where the plot moves like a horse on a caffeine rush, then Nevada is right up your alley. It’s light, it’s fast, and it doesn’t care much about explaining why things are happening. If you prefer your movies to have, you know, logic or complex character arcs, you might want to skip this one and watch something like The Set-Up instead.
Buster Crabbe carries this thing with the kind of confidence you only get when you’re a former Olympic swimmer playing a cowboy. He’s got that stern, squinty-eyed look down perfectly. Every time he walks into a saloon, you just know a table is going to get flipped over within the next three minutes.
The pacing is genuinely weird. One minute we’re dealing with a tragic suicide, and the next, they’re just casually setting up a ranch like nothing happened. The shift is so sudden it’s almost funny. It feels like the director wanted to get to the gunfights before the coffee got cold.
I found myself staring at the background extras in the saloon scenes. Some of them are just standing there, looking like they forgot they were supposed to be acting. It’s charming in a low-budget way. You can almost feel the lack of a second take in some of these shots.
There’s a moment where Jim wins the deed back by cheating, and the gambler just… gives it up? No massive brawl, no dramatic standoff, just a quick "well, you got me." It’s so underwhelming it loops back around to being kind of cool. Sometimes, less is definitely more, I guess.
I wouldn't say this is a lost masterpiece or anything. It’s just a solid, dusty little flick. If you’ve seen The Last Outpost and you’re craving more grit, this will scratch that itch for about an hour. Don't expect to remember it a week from now, but for a rainy Tuesday? It works.