One of two westerns Monte Hellman made back to back, (the other is "The Shooting"), "Ride in the Whirlwind" was definitely a post-modern take on the genre, very much a product of the New Hollywood. It was produced by Hellman and Jack Nicholson and Nicholson not only starred in the picture but also wrote the screenplay. If it follows the trajectory of a traditional western it also breaks from that trajectory scene to scene. Hellman clearly wanted to make a 'realist' western with banal dialogue that doesn't seem to advance the story, shooting it in a totally naturalistic style that's as close to a documentary as you are likely to get.
As an actor Nicholson had yet to find his voice but he's very disarming nevertheless and it's he and Harry Dean Stanton, (billed here simply as Dean Stanton), who walk away with the acting honors in a film that is leisurely to the point of inertia. Of course, both this and "The Shooting" have built up a considerable cult following on the back of the director's reputation and there is something of the Peckinpah in this vision of a West where life and death are mirror images of each other and where survival isn't so much a matter of choice but is purely down to chance. It is a deeply pessimistic picture; here is an American West that offers no hope for the future, bleak and quintessentially Hellman.
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