Slow overlooked thriller

Rating: 7/10 (26 July 2018)

Wind River's director Taylor Sheridan follows up his acclaimed screenplays for of 2016 Hell or High Water and 2015 Denis Villeneuve's Sicario with his first directorial effort.. Wind River is another modern-day western, full of tense action and tough, taciturn characters trying to navigate life on the fringes of America. But if Sicario and especially Hell or High Water explored the damaging legacy of the frontier myth on a country that's rigged to favor the few, then Wind River makes the connection more forceful, set as it is on a Native American reservation that's been left to its own devices with none of the infrastructure necessary to let its inhabitants thrive.
The film opens with the death of a young woman. Discovered miles from anywhere in the frozen wilds of Wyoming's Wind River reservation, she's found and identified by Jeremy Renner (Cory Lambert), a game tracker with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He knows the girl, knows her family, knows that something horrifying must have forced this Native American teenager to run barefoot through the night until her lungs packed up.
Wind River may be considered slow and boring for many as the film isn't the typical crime drama, though within the second half of the film, it picks up and becomes completely engaging. The acting from the cast is what sells the film, as well as the cinematography of the outdoors. The shots are well done. Although somewhat of a predictable mystery as we see the film descend, the second act of the film makes up for it. Recommend.