Hawkeye hits the spot.

Rating: 8/10 (7 September 2017)

This review of Wind River is spoiler free
**** (4/5)
TAYLOR SHERIDAN HAS two sides, one is the well praised Oscar nominated writer of Sicario and Hell or High Water, two highly successful crime capers which succeeded in presenting grim images of an America that doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did just from his words. Which were then transferred on screen by Denis Villeneuve and David Mackenzie. The second is a director which leads us to his 'proper' debut - shiftily erasing 2011s torture porn feature Vile from his CV. Wind River. A brutal story of a murder that happens on the Wind River Reservation Park in the mountainous regions of Wyoming. With it he proves that he is one of the best storytellers of our time...
The opening is striking: Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) a veteran game tracker at the reservation stumbles across the body of a dead girl, he teams up with Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) an FBI agent who's not used to cold weather who helps him solve the case. Here Sheridan switches the tone to a whodunit thriller, the duo go around town to ask questions, who could be the suspect? Why this girl? What happened to her? The mysteries pile up, and Sheridan deals with each of them one step at a time picking a route to go with and gradually adding up clues.
Sheridan's main focus is on the Native American community of the town - that's not a negative, if anything it's a positive, throughout he brutally enforces the message that anyone can be the target for murder. He gives it the human approach, his script deals with depression, there's a moment of a mother cutting herself while flooded in tears, and an upset father who wants this case solved quickly.
Cory's story is a powerful one too, in the field he essentially strikes you as a Sherlock in the snow. On the inside he's just suffered a divorce from his ex-wife so he has to look after his young son, but there is a larger hole in his heart, a powerful message which Renner's emotional performance helps to convey. A performance that's evenly matched by Olsen, her's is a flawed yet powerful character, as the only major authority figure out there she must get used to the snowy setting if she wants to understand the clues in front of her, but as the evidence piles up she goes in for the kill.
Meanwhile, like Sicario and Hell or High Water he succeeds in making a use of the beautiful wide open sprawls of the snowy forests and the haunting quiet of the wild. Keeping the triple threat of the brutality, the bleakness and the darkness. Sadly, Wind River is not without its flaws, it suffers from American despair, it's less inner city, more inner wilderness and sometimes the film suffers from that. Despite that, this is a wildly enchanting, heartfelt and confident debut which keeps the thrills tight and thoroughly engaging.
VERDICT Sheridan's debut is a heartfelt, moving and compelling crime thriller which erupts right from the opening reel, filled with excellent performances and non-stop thrills.