Sadly undelivering thriller which fails to make the most of its potential

Rating: 4/10 (25 February 2018)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
A young woman is found dead in a snowy enclave in a Native American reservation. Completely isolated and cut off from the outside world, it falls to embittered local game tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) and FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to get to the bottom of the case. However, as professional tensions between the locals and the national agents, as well as the wall of silence that seems to build around the residents, intensifies, it proves to be more difficult than a standard hunt.
A good several years after his feature length 2011 debut, Taylor Sheridan returns to the helm with this moody, atmospheric thriller, based around true events. Diving into the heart of the reclusive, insular Native American reservations, we enter a snow-covered, out of bounds netherworld, that in itself sets the scene for an effective backdrop on which to set a brooding, suspenseful thriller. What we end up with is a film that plays doggedly to conventions, although unfortunately in a fairly generic, standard way, that squanders its chance to make the most of its potential.
Truth quite often tends to make for more compelling filmmaking than fiction, and so WR had even more chance to make the most of what it promised. Sadly, it just plays out like a connect the dots affair, obeying all the genre conventions despite having more opportunity than most to delve beyond these. It has the look and feel of your average TV movie, despite its A list Hollywood stars, and to about that level of quality. Somehow, no genuine air of suspense or tension is created in regards finding out what caused the dead girl's fate, and so the core of the film is unfortunately rotted.
Performances wise, lead stars Renner and Olsen suit their roles, and fit into their skin better than any other performers who spring to mind. It's just a shame they didn't have more satisfying material to work with. **