Jack Nicholson Movie:

		List Price: $5.98		Label: Madacy Records Salesrank: 127014 Released: November 30, 2004
		Our Price: $34.02
		Used Price: $28.03
		MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Media: DVD

The Shooting Reviews:
Great Film -- Not-so-great DVD Transfer by Madacy
2009-10-08 - I've wanted to see this film for the longest time -- ever since I first read about it in the book "Cult Movies" by Danny Peary. I was not disappointed. "The Shooting" is one of the most interesting -- and one of the weirdest -- Westerns ever. Imagine a Spaghetti Western written by Rod Serling, adapted from a Samuel Beckett play. Throw a cast that includes the great Warren Oates, an evil Jack Nicholson, a bitchy Millie Perkins, some hellish desert locales, and a truly bizarre ending -- a definite must-see.

The film itself deserves 5 stars -- but Madacy's DVD transfer is...well, not bad, but hardly the best. (At least it's letterboxed.)

There was a top-quality DVD put out by VCI a few years back: digitally-restored, with a commentary track by director Hellman and Millie Perkins. (VCI provided the same treatment for their DVD of the companion film, "Ride the Whirlwind", also directed by Hellman and starring Jack Nicholson.)

Both "The Shooting" and "Whirlwind" VCI DVDs are now sadly out-of-print -- here's hoping for a re-issue of those restored transfers!

When is a western not a western? When it's 'The Shooting'.
2009-04-02 - It's best to get it out of the way right up front - 'The Shooting' looks like a Western, smells like a Western, even tastes like a Western, but that don't make it a Western. It doesn't matter whether you're a fan of John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, if you go into this movie with any sort of 'Western' expectation, you're likely to come out disappointed. I think it's important to emphasize this - the genre description of 'Western' has too many connotations, and although 'The Shooting' may initially stay faithful to many of those conventions, in the end it morphs into something completely different.

And in case I've not been clear enough, don't misinterpret 'something completely different' to mean revisionist or surprise ending. Though they are nothing alike, 'The Shooting' has more in common with Sartre's 'No Exit' than 'Gunsmoke'. Whether by design or by accident, the film raises questions that are never truly answered, though there seems to be enough clues if one could only get them sorted out. In some ways, I think that that is an illusion - what's there on the screen is exactly all there is.

And what there is is The Woman (never named, but played by Millie Perkins) who hires two miners (Warren Oates and Will Hutchins) to guide her across the Utah desert into Kingsley. Will Gashade (Oates) has only just returned to the mining camp after going after supplies, and Coley (Hutchins as a young naive hand) has told him that the other two miners, Gashade's brother Coin and another partner Drum had went into town and Coin had accidentally ridden down a man and a 'little person', possibly a child. No one knew if they were dead or hurt. Coin vamoosed, and Drum was killed by a sniper while sitting around the campfire a few hours later.

Eventually, it becomes apparent that The Woman has hired the two miners not just to take her to Kingsley, but to track down Gashade's brother. In the desert, they are joined by a young Jack Nicholson, who plays a dandified hired killer. The party of four proceed across the desert, spiralling into a furnace of mistrust and fear and desperation.

If the synopsis sounds fairly straightforward, many of the characters' actions are inexplicable, right from the very beginning. When a movie resorts to this kind of storytelling, most of us are used to some kind of explanation at the end, some kind of drawing together of all the loose ends and tying them up, and we'll wait patiently for the payoff. Like real life, though, you won't get that here, and I think many people felt cheated by that in the end. I found this approach (whether intended or not) more interesting than if the director had explained away all the motivations and inconsistencies of his film, but I was also prepared for the type of film that this was by some of the reviews I'd already read. Going into it blindly, I may not have been nearly as charitable with my rating (though to be fair, I'm not a big western fan, and probably wouldn't have checked it out at all had I not been aware of the intricacies of the film.)

In the end, even though I enjoyed it, I can fully understand each of the negative reviews of this film. What's important before deciding to watch this movie is to understand that any questions you have at the beginning will still be there when the credits roll, and that there will not be a resolution to the film so much as it will pick and prod at sociological and psychological behavior. In other words, a set piece that borders on an examination of archetypical characters, without providing any answers for us. Not an easy film, but in my opinion, certainly a fascinating one.

Weird 60s Western with Jack Nicholson & Warren Oats
2009-01-30 - The Shooting is an offbeat 1966 Western directed by Monte Hellman, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman (using the pseudonym "Adrien Joyce"). The story is about 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 desert. During their journey, they are closely tracked and later joined by a malevolent black-clad gunslinger (Jack Nicholson) who is known by the woman.

This early Nicholson vehicle is definitely worthwhile especially if you have a taste for out-of-the-ordinary films. Millie Perkins is quite fetching and Will Hutchins is a convincing youngster sidekick, while Oates is a good every-man protagonist and Nicholson just oozes ee-vil. The film is also a must for anyone who likes lost-in-the-wilderness flicks (like me).

I was almost going to give the film 3 Stars because of the nonsensical ending. What's wrong with the ending? [SPOILER ALERT!! Don't read anymore 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. When they finally catch up to him at the very end we discover that the supposed murderer is Oates' TWIN brother who looks exactly like him. Since this is so, why didn't the woman assume Oates (Willett Gashade) was the person who killed her child since he looks exactly like the one who did (Coin Gashade)?

If anyone can shed some light on this mystery I'd appreciate it. I suspect that there is no answer, which makes the film pointless. Why go through all the expense and trouble of making a film that doesn't make sense?

Regardless, "The Shooting" is a worthwhile independent 60s Western with occasional flashes of brilliance. Some have called it the first "acid Western" but I wouldn't go that far. It has some weird touches, but not too weird.

Rough rider
2009-01-20 - Monte Hellman directed the influential 1967 flick, "The Shooting." The movie opens with Will Gashade (Warren Oates), a former bounty hunter, returning to his small mining camp. One of his partners, Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins), tells him that the camp was attacked earlier, and Will's brother (Coin) took off into the night. The next day, a mysterious woman (Millie Perkins) appears at the camp and hires Will to take her to a nearby town. Will is hesitant to accept the job from this rude woman who refuses to tell him why she needs a guide or even her name. However, when she offers Will and Colley $1000, they finally accept. Things don't go as expected, and they are soon joined by a hired gun, played by Jack Nicholson. This wild ride culminates in a doozey of an ending.

"The Shooting" is seen by many as the first acid western - a genre of revisionist Western incorporating a sixties hippie aesthetic and existentialist sensibility. It's like combining "Easy Rider" and "The Unforgiven." As such, "The Shooting" is an interesting movie that should interest fans of offbeat 60s cinema. However, be advised that it's a low-budget affair (made for just $75,000), with occasional shoddy acting and camera work; the sound is also fairly bad, with some dialogue nearly inaudible. The story by Carole Eastman ("Five Easy Pieces"), though, is an interesting twist on the typical revenge/hired gun western. The movie was filmed all on-location in the Utah desert, making it one of the more austere westerns and adding to its feeling of authenticity. Hellman also used all natural light, again adding to its starkness and realism.

Monte Hellman previously had worked extensively with b-movie genius Roger Corman, which is how he met a young Jack Nicholson. He was just starting to become the auteur he'd later become with 70s mini-masterpieces like "Two-Lane Blacktop" and "Cockfighter." Although rough around the edges, stick with "The Shooting" and enjoy the ride.


what on earth was this supposed to be?
2008-09-02 - Let's be honest about something. Warren Oates did some great acting in a lot of really, really bad movies. He didn't have much to work with but tore into his role like a starving man in ppen all night deli. Much of what came out of the late 60s was artsy garbage and this is firmly in that camp.

Warren's character takes a job guiding a mysterious woman into the dessert. She's tracking someone and has also hired a killer to finish the guy off when she gets him. The killer is played by a young Jack Nicholson and you just know from the get go that he's going to try to shoot all the other men just for kicks more so than the reward money.

They don't have enough water and have no provisions for food or their horses but go into the dessert anyway. Eventually it becomes clear that probably no-one good or bad is going to make back home but they keep going. Finally there is a weird (complete with 60s drug trip music and funny camera angles) scene where the woman finally catches up with the guy she's been tracking. At the end I sat up and asked what the heck happened. Supposedly this waste of film is some kind of metaphor for Vietnam or the terrors of suburbia, or perhaps it's a poor tribute to the Twilight Zone or maybe someone just fooled the studio into bank rolling this and had to come up with some "intellectual" sounding excuse as to why it is the silly way it is. Watch it for Warren Oates or watch it so you can see Jack Nicholson as a punk kid but don't expect this to be a real Western.