brutal crime drama

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2017)

Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a hunter working for Fish and Wildlife Service. He is brought in to Wind River Reservation to hunt down an animal in the mountains of Wyoming and discovers the frozen body of a dead local girl. Ben (Graham Greene) is the tribal police chief. New FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) arrives to investigate the case. She faces jurisdictional conflicts and cultural intransigence.
This is very much in the tradition of In Cold Blood. The characters are well-drawn. There is a sense of place. The violence is brutal. The shootouts are shocking, abrupt, visceral, and intense. There isn't much of a mystery. It's more about a straight forward investigation. The scene with Cory confessing his lost to Jane is something different. Although I appreciated it, Jane getting the information from his wife would be more compelling in the traditional sense. Jane would know something about Cory without him knowing about it. When the perp is on the run and sees the porcupine, I fully expected the mountain lion to jump him from behind. There is a poetry to what Cory does to him. This is a brutal and effective crime drama.