The Shooting

G

1967

1h 22m

Western

List

100%

20 Reviews

Tomatometer

64%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

In the American West, Willet Gashade (Warren Oates), a former bounty hunter, and Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins), his dimwitted partner, are approached by a secretive young woman (Millie Perkins) who offers them money to guide her through the desert but refuses to discuss why she is traveling. The group embarks on the journey and is eventually joined by Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson), a volatile gunslinger the woman has also hired. The only question is why.

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Bryan M

Good film. intense at times as they fight the elements more than anything. Always fun to see a young Jack Nicholson. Not sure I understand the ending.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

03/18/24

Full Review

uranderson

Really good. Bleak but riveting. As for people calling it incomprehensible, it's not, the threads of the plot don't come together until the final frames. I had to pause and rewind the last bit a couple times to fully understand what happened. I would have been more in the dark if I'd seen this in theaters. Without going into spoilers, I think the motivations and actions (or importantly, inaction) of the former bounty hunter Willet are what gives the movie depth. The other characters stick to code, but he is radical and fascinating. You won't fully understand any of that until the very end when you've seen the final seconds and had some time to sit with it after. It's a movie that stays with you and one I recommend highly.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

12/28/23

Full Review

TheFilmReviewer 1

Eerie and compelling, Monte Hellman's avant-garde western is dastardly thought-provoking, with a terrific cast and a brilliantly noir-ish overtone.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/02/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This movie was slow moving but somewhat intriguing... until the end which was very disappointing. Maybe when this film was contemporary, it had more meaning. I read it was an allegory to the killing of JKF and LHO. I didn't see it. I just saw a wasted two hours. My advice? Don't waste your time.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

It's plot bordered on ridiculous, most parts made no sense, and my interest died long before the characters did. Total waste of my time.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

02/12/23

Full Review

jim h

An amazingly good "hidden gem" of a Western. Hard to believe it never even garnered a general theatrical release back in 1967. Stumbled across it by accident on an "old movies" channel. Thought I'd just watch until the Jack Nicholson character showed up, to see what he looked like as a young guy in a Western. By the time he appeared (as a very convincing "unstable" gunfighter) the movie had completely sucked me in & held me riveted to the very end. This is just a really good, gripping Western. Don't be put off by all the fancy-ass critics praising it as "existential", nor all of the trolls reflexively dissing the pretentious reviews. Just watch it for yourself. I think you too will be amazed something this good never even made it to a theater in 1967!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

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Monte Hellman

Director

Millie Perkins

Woman

Jack Nicholson

Billy Spear

Will Hutchins

Coley Boyard

Warren Oates

Willett Gashade

B.J. Merholz

Leland Drum

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Margaret Hinxman

Daily Telegraph (UK)

The sound is poor. The colour erratic. It looks as if it has been shot on the backlot of Republic Pictures instead of on location. Yet better than any Western I have sees in, well, years, it conveys the original suspense of the genre.

Jun 1, 2020

Full Review

Philip Strick

Sight & Sound

Heilman a master in the art of putting his camera, quite unpredictably, in the right place at the right time. He matches the absorbing imprecision of his subject with a spectacular precision of technique

Feb 12, 2020

Full Review

Richard Brody

New Yorker

Hellman's tight telephoto shots press the characters entomologically against the barren landscape; he revels in the technical charms of the medium and the scruffiness of his B-movie budget as audaciously as a French New Wave director.

Jul 5, 2016

Full Review

Nathanael Hood

Unseen Films

It's easy to dismiss the deliberately obfuscated characters and inexplicable plot as arthouse pretentiousness. One's mileage depends on one's patience for postmodernism.

Rated: 7/10

May 27, 2020

Full Review

Dick Lochte

Los Angeles Free Press

[Monte] Heilman was a director who deserved attention, even six years ago.

Jan 8, 2020

Full Review

John Beifuss

Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

An ambiguously motivated and almost surreal revenge film so open to interpretation it could be the '2001' of Westerns.

Rated: 4/4

Nov 13, 2014

Full Review

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Synopsis

In the American West, Willet Gashade (Warren Oates), a former bounty hunter, and Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins), his dimwitted partner, are approached by a secretive young woman (Millie Perkins) who offers them money to guide her through the desert but refuses to discuss why she is traveling. The group embarks on the journey and is eventually joined by Billy Spear (Jack Nicholson), a volatile gunslinger the woman has also hired. The only question is why.

Director: Monte Hellman
Production Co: Proteus Films
Rating: G
Genre: Western
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 15, 2016
Runtime: 1h 22m

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