Shoutout to Elizabeth Olsen

Rating: 8/10 (13 March 2018)

This movie, WIND RIVER, is definitely worth watching. The cast is excellent and one of the main actors, Game and Fishing official Cory Lambert played by actor Jeremy Renner is superb.
But my hat goes off to Elizabeth Olsen as FBI agent, Jane Banner.
One of the reasons I held off on watching Wind River was my original concern that Elizabeth Olsen was going to be unrealistically portrayed as some kind of FBI superheroine agent who kicks 6-feet tall bad guys around. First, I was wrong thinking Olsen is 5'3". I was surprised to learn that she's actually 5'6" although in the movie she did look very short to me. I really loved Olsen's FBI Jane Banner because she WASN'T a phony superheroine with super strength and martial arts master skills and a crack shot. Her FBI character was completely believable and likeable. I'll tell you why.
1) FBI agent Jane Banner is a desk-bound, FBI agent based out of Las Vegas. Banner is well-trained, professional, but young and inexperienced.
2) Jane Banner is obviously no Wonder Woman and she clearly understands her own limitations and lack of field experience. Yet she doesn't make excuses and puts in the required time and effort and we see that she does her best given the mere perfunctory response the FBI lends to a ho-hum homicide on a little-known Indian Reservation out in the boondocks vastness of Wyoming.
3) Jane Banner is a likeable person. She has no overt personality flaws and no ego hang-ups. She is polite, courteous, and tactful and doesn't bulldoze her way onto the reservation murder investigation. Yet she skillfully deploys her federal (FBI) authority to defuse a dangerous confrontation between the oil rig security guards and the local sheriffs.
4) Jane's FBI training shows when she immediately realizes the danger of a suspicious, drugged-up Indian suspect starting to reach inside his own clothing which is justified when the tweaker pulls out a spray canister of pepper spray.
5) Jane's youthful inexperience shows when she knocks on the front door of the murder victim's boyfriend's quarters. At the time they suspected the boyfriend as the murderer and didn't know the boyfriend was also a murder victim himself. But not knowing that, Jane should have kept to the side of the door when knocking on it. The real killer shot Jane through the door. Luckily Jane, following her FBI training, did not neglect to wear her bulletproof vest.
6) Jane Banner does not turn out to be a superheroine and she doesn't save the day but she gets her licks in and helps bring down a few of the bad guys. It's Cory (Renner) who is the main hero who saves the day and saves Jane. But Jane's FBI character is still central to the storyline. She is the character who ties in together the other main characters, the reservation sheriff and Game and Fishing official hunter tracker, Cory, as the official investigative team's de facto leader, being the federal authority.
7) A flashback shows the actual crimes. It was a sick tragedy that was orchestrated by one, obnoxious, intoxicated (alcohol always seems to be part of it) security guard team member. Had he not been there to incite his fellow security guard teammates, the rape and murder would never have occurred.