Off-Beat Detective Movie

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2017)

Bet you've never seen a detective movie about a murder on an Indian reservation. Well, "Wind River" is one, even though neither of the two principals, Jermy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen, are detectives. He is a hunter who disposes of livestock predators like lions and coyotes, and she is an FBI agent out of her element. She is from Las Vegas via Ft. Lauderdale and this is her first case. Together they try to solve the murder of an Indian girl who died of exposure on a remote part of the reservation.
Although they are the principals, the real star of the picture is the reservation, vast, snow-covered and far from civilization. The overriding sentiment there is spiritual and financial hopelessness accompanied by bleak prospects for the future. The older ones are trapped and the younger ones yearn for something better which never seems to come. The story itself is interesting and absorbing but moves slowly until the eye-popping finale. The landscape is gorgeously photographed and makes the viewer wonder how the unmatched beauty of nature can be host to such poverty and desperation.