Wind River Is One Of The Better Movies Of The Year

Director: Taylor Sheridan

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Jon Bernthal

Genre: Thriller

Year: 2017

A young Native American woman is found raped and dead in the remote wilderness of Wind River Indian reservation. A rookie FBI agent (Olsen) comes to investigate and together with police and a veteran tracker with the Fish and Wildlife Service (Renner) must find out who’s responsible.

The story in Wind River is nothing new or special but it is well-told and not predictable. The movie starts little slow and patiently builds its setting – focus here is not on action but on characters and storytelling. Almost each of the characters are well written and with clear motivations behind their actions. I won’t go into details because I don’t want to spoil anything for you.

Wind River’s landscapes are beautiful but cold, unforgiving and depressing – as Renner’s character says, here you’re just trying to survive.

The movie also tackles themes of grief and loss – be it a loss of loved ones or hope. Some of them, like the family of murdered Native American girl or Renner’s character, are trying to overcome a loss of their loved ones. And some of them, like young men living here, given up any hope and turned to drugs.

Wind River is not a perfect movie. The main problem is that it feels familiar like you watched this kind of movie several times. Nevertheless, second directorial effort from screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Hell or High Water) is a very good thriller with a good story, script and dialogues, well-written characters, very good performances from the actors, beautiful but depressing landscapes and some unexpecting bursts of violence.

You can purchase a Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon or you can watch Wind River on Amazon Video if you’re interested.

Blu-ray

Amazon Video