Bullet Points: Wind River
Somewhere between watching all those Cannon movies and taking in another Japanese samurai flick, I found myself sitting on Wind River in my Netflix queue. I had heard nothing but good things about it and I haven’t had a bad experience watching a Taylor Sheridan movie yet so here goes…
Synopsis: A veteran hunter helps an FBI agent investigate the murder of a young woman on a Wyoming Native American reservation.
- Indian Land: One of the biggest stains in the history of the founding of our great nation is our treatment of the Native tribes that inhabited North America. Every continent has gone through similar circumstances of conquerors invading areas but not many have done so while spewing so many self-righteous ideas about freedom and religion. It’s a depressing thought to know what life is like for many Native Americans living on government land is like now. Crime, drug use, and unemployment are rampant now and far too few efforts are made to help the people on these lands.
- Hawkeye and the Scarlet Witch: Wind River takes place on Indian land in the state of Wyoming. The film opens with a creepy-sounding narration with a young girl running through the frozen tundra in the background. It’s very ominous and it eventually leads us to the introduction of Jeremy Renner. He’s a hunter/rancher/Fish and Wildlife guy. We see him taking out some wolves before they get to someone’s animals and we learn that Cory (Renner) has an ex-wife and a son. There is quite a bit of tension between him and his ex, which is normal, but we see later that they once had a teenage daughter who turned up dead. It’s this experience that Cory has with his own daughter that causes him to be so passionate about solving the murder in this movie. Olsen’s character Agent Banner, shows up after Cory finds the body of the girl. she’s totally out of her element as she was never expected to solve the crime, but just to get it listed as a homicide so the real detectives could come in.
- An Unsolved Murder: The film never treats Banner as if she isn’t up to the challenge of solving the crime. In fact, the only things that she makes mistakes with has to do with the suddenness of being there (not having the proper gear) and rubbing a few people the wrong way by being a Federal agent. Between Banner and Cory, though, they cover most of the bases and start looking for who could have done the crime. It’s helpful that Cory is a tracking machine and is able to see some things in the snow that even a box of cameras might have missed.
- The Build-up: There is such a great build in tension throughout the movie. For it being the murder mystery kind of movie, there aren’t many slow moments. When it does slow down a bit it’s normally because we’re about to learn some very valuable information for the main characters or in order to find the killer. Cory and Banner are both working side by side with the local law enforcement played by Graham Greene. He was just great.
- Tracking a Wolf: “You don’t catch wolves looking where they might be. You look where they been.” Cory and the Chief have all sorts of knowledge to instill in the young agent from the FBI. Being in such a small town, Cory and Graham Greene already know much about the girl who was killed. They visit her drug addict brother and it leads to a killer scene at a rundown trailer involving some bear mace and a shotgun. The movie really starts to pick up in the action department as the trio get closer and closer to discovering what happened to the girl.
- The Payoff: The Avengers always get their man. If they can kick Ultron’s ass then some murdering rapists stand no chance! I don’t want to give away anything from the film but the showdown at the end is freaking awesome! Hawkeye really lives up to his name and the Olsen and the bunch really hold their own. It’s also refreshing that we actually get to learn what happened with the girl by way of flashback, instead of someone just confessing to it.
- Grief: Multiple characters in Wind River deal with grief in their own ways. It’s not the most upbeat of movies. There are folks getting killed left and right and one of the main characters is still dealing with the loss of his own child. Don’t go into this film expecting the happiest of endings. It’s certainly the type of movie that will make you think and appreciate the things you do have a little more.
The Verdict: I thought that Wind River was one of the better movies that I’ve seen in recent memory. I end up watching so many “so bad they’re good” movies that it’s rare to watch a movie where I have not a single gripe with. The performances are phenomenal, from Renner and Olsen to Graham Greene and the rest of the cast. I couldn’t find a single scene that was brought down by the actors. On the technical side, the visuals and the sound stand out in a very positive way. There is a desolation to the atmosphere that only comes from a combination of the performances, the picture, and the sound. Go out of your way to watch this one.
