August 19th in Chicago, IL. Taylor Sheridan directs and writes a tale of murder on a reservation in Wyoming. The cast includes Jeremy Renner as Corey Lambert, Elizabeth Olsen as Jane Banner and Graham Greene as Ben, the tribal police chief.
The film opens with a young girl seemingly running for her life through the deep snow. Lambert is called out to his in-laws place to investigate a cattle mauling as Lambert works for the Fish and Wildlife Service as a hunter. In the course of the tracking the animals, its believed that mountain lions are culprits, he comes across the frozen body of a young woman ill suited to be out in the weather; no shoes or proper winter attire. Lambert recognizes the girl as Natalie Lambert.
When Ben gets out to the scene, he suspects foul play and contacts the FBI. The FBI sends in the ill-prepared Jane Banner straight from Las Vegas to deal with the situation. Banner gets off on the wrong foot while questioning Natalie's family and butts heads with the coroner when he balks at calling Natalie's death a murder (his explanation makes perfect sense but Banner cannot get any additional FBI help if the death is not ruled a homicide.
During the course of chasing down a lead, Banner shoots a suspect and a second body is discovered. That of Matt (Jon Bernthal), a security guard at a drilling site, who was actually Natalie's boyfriend. During this time Lambert divulges to Banner that his own daughter, Emily, died about two years ago in similar circumstances to Natalie, both were friends. She had a party at the house, while the parents were away, and was found dead of exposure miles from the house. The next day Banner, Ben, Lambert and a few sheriff's deputies head out to the drilling site. They're met by the security team who show signs of brawling. In course of going to question one of the guards, Banner is ambushed and a fire fight ensues.
The audience is treated to a flashback scene that shows what went down the night Natalie died. Providing cover, Lambert shoots the remaining guards and goes after the suspect. When Lambert catches him, he drags him up to an isolated spot without any shoes and gives him the same opportunity to save himself as Natalie had.
Great cinematography (that really captures the near hopelessness of the harsh winter isolation) and solid acting. He story isn't a "whodunit" since you don't really get to the suspects until the end of the film. My only real issue is that the character that raped Natalie, was the weaseliest guy in the bunch, obviously the most likely to commit a rape. The gang that is involved, they also kill Matt and dump the body, go from drunken douche bags to murderers real fast. They're ok with beating up their friend when he gets pissed about them razzing Natalie, raping his unconscious girlfriend, eventually killing their friend and dumping the body. None of the guys show any problems with their actions when the authorities arrive and are even willing to kill law enforcement officials. It doesn't seem possible that they would escape. Even if they got away with what happened to Natalie, killing an FBI agent is not the way to go.
This is a really good film, not quite as good as Hell or High Water, Sheridan wrote that one, but you can mention Wind River in the same breath as Hell or High Water without any repercussions. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an 87% rating and it lives up to it. The pacing of the film was just right to me, it never seemed slow but never moves too fast either. Everything is deliberate. Since the deaths of Natalie and Emily are similar, Sheridan feints at the possibility of there being a serial killer at large but that's as close as it gets. The film has a post script about how no statistics on missing native american women are kept. This a really good picture that is worth seeing. Keep an eye out for more of Sheridan's work in the future.
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