Three Out of Three

Rating: 9/10 (13 September 2017)

"Wind River" is Sheridan's third great movie in a row. He's a man who understand the dark side of nature and can give us both an inner and an outer tale of what the main characters are going through. This time, a dedicated man with a less than perfect life, is recruited to find out what happened to a young woman whose body has been found in the snow. With the supervision or assistance, depending on your point of view, the mystery is slowly resolved, and the findings are grim.
It becomes apparent from early on that whatever happened to this young woman has the makings of some type of relationship going wrong; however, as we are told the story, we realize that the backgrounds of the participants in this drama have quite a bit of pain, and their society is slowly imploding because there is a strong likelihood failure or tragedy will strike somehow.
We get to see the young woman's family's problem, and how the list of suspects become more intriguing, when we learn more about her brother and his friends. The thrills intensify as our pair of investigators keeps searching for the truth, and it reaches explosive levels when the possible culprits are found.
None will ever accuse of this being an unoriginal or boring movie. We might have seen parts of the whole before, but the whole things moves slowly because of the richness of the details, the power of the technical elements who augment the drama. The actors are at their best and both Olsen and Renner can effectively show frustration, despair, and the incredulity of realizing that human nature has the potential of darkness.
"Wind River" is Taylor's best so far. It feels a bit more accomplished than his previous two; maybe it's the power of the narrative or the beauty of the setting. What is undeniable is that the whole in indeed a classic.