A Suspensil, Somber, and Unflinching Mystery Thriller

Rating: 8/10 (5 May 2020)

Writer-Director Taylor Sheridan has gone three for three. After delivering the brilliant screenplays for Sicario and Hell or High Water, he's shown that he has the chops to direct as well with this tightly wound, darkly atmospheric mystery suspense thriller.
The setup is simple enough. A native woman is found dead on frozen on a reservation, with clear indications that she was victim of foul play. Local Fish and Wildlife tracker Cory Lambert teams with newly arrived FBI agent Jane Banner and the reservation police to solve the case. It's not the most complicated of stories. But it's the depth and complexity with which the story is told that make it something special.
The acting and characterization are brilliant. Jeremy Renner delivers what may be his best performance since The Hurt Locker as Lambert. We can instantly tell that he's a master hunter and tracker, deadly as the predators he hunts. Cory is a man who knows the land so well and is so good at what he does that the local Indians practically consider him one of their own. Yet he never lapses into the cliché of the emotionless, near superhuman action hero, or the "White Indian" archetype. He carries the weight of years, experience, and deep loss with him, but Renner plays him a likeable, almost ordinary guy.
As agent Banner Olsen is tough, plucky, determined, and more than a bit out of her element. When we first meet her, she's lost, completely unprepared for the cold, and manages to offend the first person she interviews. The other characters' first response- and ours- is to question what the FBI was thinking when it sent her. But it's soon apparent that even as a fish out of water she has good instincts and is relentless when pursuing a case. And when the shooting starts she is a total badass.
Wind River is driven by suspense as much as its characters, and it delivers here as well. The pacing is classic slow burn; deliberately slow but tense, punctuated with moments of heart pounding action. As Agents Lambert and Banner follow each lead there's a growing sense of looming danger. No sooner is one mystery solved than another takes its place. And when the tension finally breaks the action is absolutely stunning in its intensity.
As with Sheridan's previous works, this film also has a powerful sense of authenticity: that the filmmakers have an intimate knowledge of the setting and show it as it is. And the picture they paint of life on the reservation is disquietingly bleak. In every direction there's nothing but inhospitable frozen wastes. A palpable sense of poverty and desperation hang in the air. Add the fact that there are only a handful of officers with virtually no resources to police an area the size of Rhode Island and it's not surprising that some people don't put much faith in, or have much respect for the law.
Wind River is also notable for the emphasis it places on the grieving process. At every stage of the investigation, Cory is haunted by the memory of his own loss. The grief is always there, just below the surface when it's not welling up into the open. The rawer, overwhelming anguish of the victim's parents is also front and center. Yet for all the focus on sadness it never feels forced or mopey. The impression is one of real people dealing with real loss. And rather than the usual platitudes about healing with time and learning to live again, Wind River offers starkly honest admissions that the pain will never go away, and what matters is how you deal with it.
Wind River isn't quiet the masterpiece that Hell or High Water was, nor is it as action packed as Sicario. But it's still a tightly wound, exceptionally deep mystery thriller that boasts strong central characters and compelling performances. Definitely worth checking out for fans of the genre.