Wind River - Offers More Bluster Than Thoughtfulness

Rating: 4/10 (2 July 2018)

This moody drama starts out well enough with long shots of a vast, foreboding snowbound wilderness and a young girl running towards an icy death - but, what follows by way of a wrap-up is basically an over the top stock n' trade-shoot 'em up - with tacked on moralising about Native American social issues. I support the comments about the shocking lack of demographics on missing Native American women and fail to comprehend why this shameful situation is allowed to exist - given our so-called 'equal opportunity' society. A solid documentary drawing attention to such an appalling lack of information could be far more beneficial than a commercial (for profit) 'entertainment' movie such as this. As interesting (and sensitive) as some of it certainly is, the poor sound, mumbling actors, cheap handheld camerawork and scant dialouge, are among other elements that don't offer the benefits they should.
A somewhat unbelievable bunch of red-neck-white-eyes, who get thrown in as the kill happy villains - forms a rather messily written means-to-an-end that seems overly obvious. These heavy handed 'them and us' productions will do little to improve race relations - if sincerely out to make a quality statement, far more balance is needed - otherwise, it simply takes us back to history repeating itself without much contribution to a helpful resolve. This will entertain those who look, without particularly thinking too much about what they see and, maybe the title card 'Inspired by true events' could be a rather long bow to draw... apart from the sad demographic.