Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Better Late Then Never

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

"The Shooting" is about the futility, the destructive, and the self- destructive nature of revenge. It's a story about how one person's single minded obsession can involve others and destroy them as well. When you seek revenge, or aid others in seeking revenge, you can destroy yourself and those around you. It's also a story about how difficult it can be to avoid getting involved in an enterprise that you know is going to be trouble, but circumstances just don't allow you to avoid it. You get sucked in.The woman will go to any lengths to kill the person who perhaps killed someone close to her (her husband and child? perhaps accidentally? we don't know the circumstances). She will enlist anyone she can any way she can. Simple-minded Coley is sucked in by her domineering attitude and her attractiveness. Will goes along for the easy money and to protect his friend Coley, not realizing the true nature of the mission (that the person she is chasing is actually Will's brother, the twist at the end). Billy Spears is a killer who would follow the woman just for kicks. People question if they all die, but whether they all die or not, they will never be the same. Coley is dead. Will lost his best friend (Coley) who was "dependent" on him. He also may have lost his brother (probably). He also lost his other partner back at the mine. And, he may have died at the end himself. Even if Billy doesn't die in the desert, his shattered gun hand will force him to find a new profession (and change his attitude, since he can no longer back up his arrogance with his gun). Perhaps the fact that he is walking alone in the desert at the end means that the others are dead, and that he will die soon as well, but does it really matter? All of their lives were destroyed due to the woman's obsession with revenge. She rode all the men and the horses to death in her obsessive quest for revenge (whether it was justified or not). Perhaps in the final scene, when Warren Oates sees his brother (himself) he is realizing the impact that this quest has had on him. He has destroyed himself.

Why do some of the critics like movies like this one? How pretentious and silly is it to give a movie a high rating because it's poorly-written? The story makes little sense, it's like something a person who had never written a story or screenplay before might come up with. Why would a woman try to hire a man to kill his own twin brother? Why was the man at the mine shot in the face, and who shot him? Why did Willett not pick up a canteen of water when he continued on after he crushed Billy's gun hand? Why did the woman not shoot Willett when he was about to strike Billy with the rock? Some of the characters introduced in the movie were not explained or developed. Like the bearded man - what was his role in the story?I would have given this movie a 1 or a 2 rating if not for the cinematography, which is very good considering the budget and quality of equipment they had to work with.

This enigmatic western about a quartet of strangers riding through a rugged, sun-bleached wasteland may seem exasperating, but "The Shooting" pays itself off in the end. Willett Gashade (Warren Oates of "Return of the Seven") is a former bounty hunter who has forsaken hunting downmen for hunting for gold. He has several partners. Amiable but loquacious Coley Boyard (Will Hutchins of TV's "Sugarfoot") is one of them. Will hasn't been at their mining camp for a couple of days, but all hell has broken loose during the interval. Coley saw Willett's brother Coin leave the camp and one of their other partners, Leland Drum (B.J. Merholz of "Drive, He Said"), die from a bullet in the head while he sat crouched over a campfire slurping coffee. Coley is predictably distraught later when Will shows up at camp. Will disarms Coley and goes to sleep in their tent with Coley's gun on his belly. The following day a mysterious rider shoots the horse that she was riding and traipses into Will's camp. This anonymous dame (Millie Perkins of "The Diary of Anne Frank") has money to blow and hires Will to guide her through the desert. Not only do we never learn her name, but also she displays about as much compassion as a rattlesnake. She never smiles. Coley rides along with them and they ride into a town and then set off into the desert. Director Monte Hellman's low-budget oater was co-produced by Jack Nicholson, who arrives about thirty minutes into the action as an intimating but taciturn gunslinger in fancy clothes with arm garters and gloves. The lady identifies him as Billy Spear and welcomes his eerie presence. Ultimately, he winds up shooting poor Coley when the charismatic but simple-minded oaf tries to shoot him. The remaining three stumble through the desert until they exhaust their horses with the woman shooting up the landscape as they go. Initially, Will believes that she is firing her six-gun to give Billy a way to catch up with her. The last few minutes with a brief but bloodless shoot-out offers little in the way of narrative closure. Presumably, the individual that the lady guns down is Will's look-alike brother. Mind you, Oates doesn't receive dual credit for this role. Coley mentioned early on in this minimalist, 82-minute western that Coin was responsible for the death of somebody in town. The only explanation is that the dead person in town that Coin killed is related to the lady, possibly her child. Whatever the case, the lady's inexorable tenacity to track him through the desert despite dying in the process is that she has to exact vengeance. This lean and mean horse opera keeps everything under wraps even its surprise ending. Will Hutchins steals the film with his broad comic performance. The scene where he scrambles desperately up a hill to take refuge in a shack while spilling flour along the way is hilarious. Hutchins is the only traditional western character on hand; furthermore, he is the most sympathetic. Hutchins delivers twice as much dialogue as anybody else. At the same time, Oater remains reserved, philosophical, and questioning, while Perkins emerges as both thoroughly inscrutable and totally obnoxious. She defies the standard stereotypical woman in western and propels the action to its conclusion.Some critics have labeled "The Shooting" an existential western, and the description seems appropriate. We learn precious little about these sketchy characters. They don't break down around the campfire and talk about themselves like they would in a "Budd" Boetticher western. Reportedly, Hellman tore up the first nine pages of Carole Eastman's screenplay to keep us puzzling over the succession of perplexing events that ensue. Incidentally, she penned the screenplay for another legendary Nicholson film "Five Easy Pieces." Nicholson is striking as a natty trigger-happy gunslinger, and Perkins epitomizes revenge in her quest to kill Will's brother. A hypnotic sagebrusher that relies on straightforward action to propel it headlong to its shocking finale, "The Shooting" qualifies as an art-house saga. If Italian movie director Michelangelo Antonioni had ever helmed a western, he would have done something like "The Shooting" because it seems so random and pointless.

Monte Hellman directed this strikingly unique, original, yet experimental western that stars Millie Perkins as a mysterious woman with no revealed name who hires two cowboys named Willit & Coley(played by Warren Oates & Will Hutchins) to track down a man for mysterious reasons, though it appears to be Willit's brother who may have been involved in an accidental death with another cowboy who is later shot dead. Jack Nicholson costars as a cold-blooded gunfighter assisting the woman in the hunt, which leads them to the barren hot desert and a surprise ending, which will no doubt either intrigue or infuriate the viewer, but fine acting and direction keep it on track, especially by Perkins.