Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Monkeywess This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

hrkepler Mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) hires two men, former bounty hunter Willet Gashade (Warren Oates) and his slow witted friend Coley (Will Hutchins) to accompany her to a town located on the other side of the desert. The group is followed by slick gunslinger (Jack Nicholson) who seems to want to kill them all. The woman never says her name or why she's following someone. For some reason, she is out for revenge.The story is quite simple with some not so obvious twists. There isn't much backstory of the characters and not much dialogue, but actors (especially Warren Oates and Jack Nicholson) fill the parts enough substance to make them interesting. Millie Perkins is also good as a woman who is targeted only to complete her mission without showing any remorse or sympathy towards her companions. It is very easy to start hate her. The slow burning tension is in the air throughout the film when characters battling with desert and with themselves. The haunting musical score lays the veil of never ending threat over the head of Willet and Coley.'The Shooting' has been called Kafkaesque western, existential western and the very first acid western. I agree with all these statements. Thanks to well balanced and wonderfully composed tracking shots and disorienting close-ups together with mystery the 'The Shooting' feels more like a (acid)trip. Revenge story works on many levels because there aren't much exposition - the motives of all the main characters remain hidden until the very last minute of the film. The film tricks us even with its climatic but ambiguous abrupt ending that is much more straightforward when to think about it - one of those rare moments where confusing ending actually answers to more questions than it raises.

Leofwine_draca THE SHOOTING is a very low budget American western directed by cult favourite Monte Hellman, a former Roger Corman man. This features Will Hutchins and Warren Oates in the lead roles, playing a couple of cowboys who are employed by the pretty Millie Perkins to guide her across an arid desert landscape in pursuit of a fugitive.This entire film consists of a handful of characters, their horses, and the harsh Utah landscapes. The desert setting is very well realised and Hellman shoots it in an active way. A pity, then, that the plotting is so slim and long-winded; very little happens en route aside from a lot of bickering, and the supposed twist ending is more head-scratching than anything else.This film is chiefly of interest for featuring Oates before he became a big film star in the 1970s in the likes of BADLANDS and BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA, and he still has that laidback charm. Also on hand is Jack Nicholson, here producing as well as taking the role of a slick gunslinger. Hutchins adds sympathy as the simpleton, but the real stand-out is Perkins whose driven character prefigures similar roles in the likes of HANNIE CAULDER and TRUE GRIT.

Wuchak "The Shooting" is an offbeat 1966 Western directed by Monte Hellman and written by Carole Eastman (using the pseudonym "Adrien Joyce"). The story involves two men (Warren Oates and Will Hutchins) who are hired by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) to accompany her to a town located many miles across the Utah desert. During their journey they are tracked and joined by a mysterious black-clad gunslinger (Jack Nicholson) who is known by the woman.This early Nicholson vehicle is worthwhile if you have a taste for out-of-the-ordinary films. Millie Perkins is fetching and Will Hutchins is a convincing youngster sidekick while Oates is a good every-man protagonist and Nicholson just oozes quiet antagonism. It's easy too see how the 'kid' would be infatuated by the cutie, despite her dubiousness, but it's even easier to understand Willet's grave suspicions. The movie is also a must for anyone who likes lost-in-the-desert flicks.While the ending seems nonsensical, the answers are there, if you look closely and chew on the details... ***SPOILER ALERT*** (Don't read this paragraph unless you've seen the film). As the story progresses it becomes clear that the woman is hunting Oates' brother who apparently killed a child or a midget, likely the woman's child, close friend or relative. When they finally catch up to him at the very end we discover that the supposed murderer is Willet's TWIN brother who looks exactly like him, which explains his name, Coin (as in, 'the other side of the coin'). Since this is so, why didn't the woman assume Willett (Oates) was the person who killed her child since he looks exactly like the one who did, Coin? Obviously she was informed that Coin had a twin brother living near the town and she felt he would be the best person to track the culprit. In any case, the twin brothers represent the duality of human nature: Willet symbolizes the good and positive side whereas Coin embodies the more destructive aspects of our nature. As such, the Gashade brothers symbolize the two converging sides of the existential coin pertaining to the human experience which come together with catastrophic results at the climax. ***END SPOILER*** Bottom line: "The Shooting" is a worthy bare-bones independent 60's Western with occasional flashes of surrealism and brilliance, as well as a lot of humdrum mundaneness (so be prepared for some slow, dull stretches). It's less straightforward than its sister film "Ride in the Whirlwind," which was made just before this one and on the same (or nearby) locations. Some have called it the first "acid Western" but I wouldn't go that far. It has some weird touches, but not too weird.The film runs 82 minutes and was shot in Kanab, Utah.GRADE: B/B- (6.5/10)

funkyfry A reluctant bounty hunter (Warren Oates) and his naive hireling (Will Hutchins) are hired by a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) to help her track down an unknown man. Along the way they're joined by the sadistic gunman (Jack Nicholson) she's hired to finish the job. Rancor and jealousy undermine the group as they pursue a quarry that may well mean death for them all.It's an interesting attempt at a psychological western that I think doesn't completely work. What really undermines the movie isn't so much Hellman's slow pace, which I had no problem with, but rather some poor casting of the leads. Perkins can barely speak her dialog without looking like she's reading off a queue card, and Hutchins is just one of the actors on this film who seems to be hopped up on amphetamines or something. On the other hand, there's absolutely no problem with Oates or Nicholson, two excellent actors having a good time playing off each other. In Oates' and Hellman's masterpiece, "Two-Lane Blacktop", the contrast between the good and the amateur actors in the film actually enhanced the cinema experience because it was a good parallel to the characters. But in this one it just feels like Hellman's odd fascination with Perkins (who starred in quite a few of his more serious films) is undermining things.Right up to the rather rushed existential ending, which anybody with half a brain can see coming a mile away, and the whole scene with Perkins rushing up the hill after this man (reminiscent of Jennifer Jones in "Duel in the Sun"), the film kept me glued to the set. It's an interesting film because it's so much more low-key than most American westerns of the time period. It's a departure from the big epics of the time and it's not as gimmicky and busy as the Italian westerns (although the music is reminiscent of the spaghetti style). For those seeking a more character-oriented western, this is a very god bet. I only wish they had enough money to hire a couple better actors to compliment Nicholson and Oates.