Eschewing the standard good guys versus bad guys fare formula that was the usual premise behind many a Grade B Western potboiler, maverick independent filmmaker Monte Hellman instead offers a fascinatingly stark and bleak meditation on fate, despair, and the hopeless plight of ordinary people struggling to survive in a grim and hostile world. Cowhands Wes (a solid performance by Jack Nicholson, who also wrote the intriguing script), Vern (an excellent Cameron Mitchell), and Otis (likable Tom Filer) are mistaken for criminals by a vigilante posse that's hell bent on lynching them. Hellman and Nicholson refuse to follow standard conventions as the deceptively simple plot unfolds at a deliberate pace. This movie's most notable achievement is the remarkable way it depicts the old west in a resolutely realistic and unromantic manner, with sparse dialogue and rough around the edges characters who are more concerned with just staying alive than they are with anything remotely resembling noble heroics. Harry Dean Stanton does well as scruffy outlaw gang leader Blind Dick. Millie Perkins likewise impresses as forlorn farm girl Abigail. Further enhanced by Gregory Sandor's plain cinematography, a spare melancholy score by Robert Drasnin, and a marvelously evocative use of the desolate desert landscape, this film has a real raw sense of gritty authenticity about it which in turn gives it an extra haunting impact.

Monte Hellman directed this more straight-forward western(compared with "The Shooting", filmed at the same time) about three cowhands named Wes, Vern, & Otis(played by Jack Nicholson, Cameron Mitchell, and Tom Filer) on their way to a cattle drive who accidentally become mixed up with real outlaws who robbed a stagecoach, killing the driver and are hunted by a group of vigilantes who aren't asking questions about innocence. When one is killed, the other two hole up with a family, forcing them to provide shelter, but that doesn't last long as fate soon catches up with them... Millie Perkins plays the daughter named Abigail. Good (if a bit talky) western is morally ambiguous but has a beautifully filmed finale.

This movie was written and co-produced by Jack Nicholson. The story is a bit lacking in content and character development, and at times a tad boring. However, the movie is still a pretty decent movie, with enough acting and story to leave the audience happy. I suspect it was filmed in Utah or Arizona. The landscape was very rocky and unfriendly desert. This fit in well with the starkness and brutality of the film. Jack Nicholson stars along television veteran Cameron Mitchell (who I always thought had a slight resemblance to Dean Martin)as two petty carriage robbers on the lam. They run into a gang led by a rather sharp leader (Harry Dean Stanton). Neither of the gangs of robbers are "bad" guys, but they are hardened. It seemed throughout the movie that the only killing they did was in self-defense as part of their duty as thieves. Yet, a vigilante committee is organized to hunt them down. It is an unfair fight. The outlaws in both gangs number eight (one of whom is already almost dead) versus a vigilante posse of about two dozen. Capture is not an option, because it means an immediate hanging. Stanton's character and a familiar black actor are the two survivors of the other gang. They are smoked out of their hiding place, and you see the futility of their efforts in inevitably being hanged. Mitchell plays the older, wiser of the two heroes (or anti-heroes). He knows how to evade capture. Nicholson plays a hardened thief, but one who is more impulsive and less experienced in the business. You can't help but feel that the "bad guys" are the real heroes. The vigilante posse are moral, honest citizens, but definitely the "bullies". In the end, the elder thief (Mitchell) sacrifices his life, so the younger thief (Nicholson) can escape to freedom. You can't help but feel, that although a little sparse in Nicholson's script, that there is a certain earthiness and rawness to the western that makes it a bit unique.

If I had to explain with complete certainty why Ride in the Whirlwind is better than average it wouldn't be very easy because on the surface it seems average through and through. It was made obviously for bargain-basement prices (I think director/co-producer Hellman once said that he didn't think anyone would see the westerns he made in the 60s), yet with that, and within the simple confines, there's a freedom in other ways too. On the surface it seems like a cowboy story gone awry, as cattle herders Jack Nicholson and Cameron Mitchell, along with another partner, are on their way to Waco and come upon a cabin occupied by Harry Dean Stanton (in total 'bad-ass' mode with an eye-patch) and his gang (who previously robbed a stagecoach and killed a few of its passengers), and neither want any trouble so they settle for the night. The next day, of course, a posse has discovered Stanton's gang's whereabouts, and there's a shootout. Somehow, Nicholson and Mitchell (not the other partner) sneak out during the shoot-out, but are of course mistaken for being part of the gang, and are sought out to be strung-up.What makes this simple premise- of cowboys falsely accused of pillaging and murder- more interesting than anything else is the consistent sense of dread and of the romantic sheen of more popular A-list westerns being stripped away. Since B-movies, not just B-westerns, concern more-so the basics of the characters, Hellman and writer Nicholson (who with this and the Trip shows that he actually isn't a bad writer with original material) dig into the fatalism tapped into both sides, of the posse and the prey. Some of the best scenes come up in the time that would usually be called the filler, when Nicholson and Mitchell hold up at a farmer's house and try and get their mind off of the situation with little distractions- Wes (Nicholson) checking out the horses, the two of them attempting a checkers game, trying to sleep- and what isn't said or the extra meaning behind the matter of fact dialog means a good deal. There's also the aspect to their not really being a sense of true justice, as the posse have taken it upon themselves to go after these men; you know just looking at these barely one-dimensional figures that all they want is a hanging done, no more no less.I'm not sure how much allegory could be drawn from the picture, though on a first viewing sometimes the stilted acting by the supporting players drew away from that (there's also a practical lack of wit from the screenplay, which is appropriate but nears being a little bland for its own good). And while it doesn't dig into the complete heels of the western genre like a later John Ford or Leone movie, or even Unforgiven, Hellman's film is a cut above many other westerns that would settle for conventions being without any challenges to the situations. The climax of the picture doesn't come as too much of a shock to those who've seen their share of genre material, but it was the best way to end the picture: it's not really a happy ending, in spite of the 'riding off into the sunset' shot. There's no hope in this world, not on any side, even if complete justice is not sought. Short and succinct, this is one of those flicks to see in the one dollar bin at the video store, if only for Nicholson and Stanton's eye-patch.