Wind River (2017) Directed by Taylor Sheridan
7A
On a search for sheep-killing mountain lions, Corey (Jeremy Renner), a hunter/tracker for the Wyoming forestry service, discovers the dead body of a young native woman who appears to have been raped. Despite the fact that her body is found on a vast native reserve the size of Rhode Island, the FBI in the form of inexperienced Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) gets involved. Corey, who is still dealing with his own family tragedy, is friends with the reserve's Chief of Police (a marvelous performance by Canada's Graham Greene), and is very good at finding clues. Knowing she is in over her head, Jane asks Corey to stay involved in the case, which he does so. The hunt is on to find the girl's killer.
Wind River is writer Taylor Sheridan's first shot at direction--his scripts include
Sicario and
Hell or High Water, so it is no surprise that he gives himself a very good script to work with. The direction is a little clunky, though. Sheridan wants to avoid cliched genre moves and develop the story his own way. But the result is a movie whose rhythm takes some getting used to. In one key scene near the end we get so much unnecessary information, seemingly out of the blue, that the narrative appears derailed for a brief time. But
Wind River has many strengths, too, and they outweigh the film's flaws. The story is a moving one, the cinematography of Wyoming in winter is spectacular, and Jeremy Renner gives one of the best performances of his career as a man who has found his own way to cope with tragedy by accepting the pain and living with it. Renner's acting is deeply internalized, tightly controlled and terse. Quietly dominating every scene that he is in, Renner lends the movie a heartfelt intensity that it might otherwise have lacked without him.
Side Note: Classic example of a 6.5, if I did 6.5s, which I don't. I think once people get into
Wind River's rhythm they will like it a lot, so the higher score seemed more of an endorsement than the lower one. If Denis Villeneuve had directed this script, though, it might well have been a masterpiece.