Fantastic!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Released in 1966 and directed by Monte Hellman from Jack Nicholson's script, "Ride in the Whirlwind" is about three traveling cowhands (Nicholson, Cameron Mitchell & Tom Filer) who are wrongly targeted by vigilantes out to apprehend a gang of murdering robbers. Cutie Millie Perkins has a peripheral role.The best thing about this barebones independent Western is its mundane realism where it comes across as a docudrama. While it's slow and sometimes dull, the subtext concerning vengeance and mistaken indictment is interesting. When the three protagonists come across a body hanging from a tree at the beginning it's a grim omen of things to come. Nicholson had a great grasp on lifelike Old West discourse. "Ride in the Whirlwind" is pretty much on par with its more surrealistic sister film "The Shooting," which was shot immediately after this one and at the same general locations.The film runs 82 minutes and was shot in Kanab & Paria, Utah.GRADE: B-

Just seen this early Nicholson's work. I have to say that visually, this is a very nice B movie, but its' story is absolutely killing it.I found this film to be both traditional and non-traditional at the same time. I watched this film because I am interested in Jack Nicholson's early works, but I was interested by the story of horse thieves and mistaken identities. I fear it is too simple story even for 82 minutes. If you are looking for a romantic Western with traditional good guys battling against the forces of evil, then you have come to the wrong place. There are no heroes and no villains in this movie, just ordinary men struggling against the elements for survival. No one has an easy life, neither homesteader nor outlaw.

The reviews by other IMDb members here are almost uniformly favorable to this Jack Nicholson scripted Western, even the viewers who rated it below average seemed generally approving of it with only one outright negative commentary as I write this. I didn't think this was a bad Western by any means, but for me, this was just a sloooowwww moving story that didn't manage to get me invested in the characters very much.I guess the unique element here had to do with the trio of characters, Wes (Nicholson), Vern (Cameron Mitchell) and Otis (Tom Filer) mistakenly pursued as outlaws who had the misfortune to meet up with a gang that had recently robbed a stagecoach and killed a couple men during the heist. To be sure, this was a staple feature of many old time B Westerns, but it was usually only one man involved who was on the run. Speaking of which, I'd never seen an outlaw bunch use a log across the trail to hold up a stage before, so that was another interesting bit.What was missing here was the tension, I just didn't feel it to any great degree. The posse pursuing Wes and Vern after Otis was shot didn't seem all that worked up about getting their men in any hurry, while the interlude at the cabin with the old couple and their daughter didn't create a feeling of terror or danger for them in any way. One would think that when Wes had Abigail (Millie Perkins) accompany him for a walk to the barn it would give rise to a heated confrontation of some sort but that opportunity was missed as well.Maybe I'm missing some nuance here, a couple of the reviews I've read were pretty thoughtful in their praise of the picture and gave me pause to consider my own initial opinion. But I have to call it as I see it, and ultimately, the picture just didn't deliver the goods for me.

Little and almost unknown western in which three cowboys (Mitchel, Fiser and Nicholson) are mistaken as bandits by a posse and pursued implacably by them. The movie has simple dialogues but its full of meaning and expressive silent expression between the three poor guys involved in the injust and obnoxious persecution. The movie was written by Jack Nicholson. A story that deals with some conceptual problems as injustice, fate and the importance of freedom. In fact, a western made in 1965, exactly the same time of some social contest as the fight for the Civil Rights in North America. 'Ride in the Whirlwind', for that matter, is not just a western movie but a political and social tale. Good performance by Cameron Mitchell. A young Jack Nicholson, with a distant but correct performance,seems to be comfortable in a western adventure, a genre that he never tries today.