Remember This? Wind River
Director - Taylor Sheridan
Writer - Taylor Sheridan
Starring - Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen
I'm changing things up a little here. The previous movies I've covered under the Remember This? tag have been terrible looking flops, often times failing spectacularly on such a scale that it is actually kind of impressive that they were quickly forgotten by society. Wind River is not that kind of movie. It is a modest indie hit, raking in $40 million world wide on a $10 million budget. It comes from the writer of Sicario and Hell or High Water, but this time he is stepping into the director's chair and it does compare favourably to those films. Wind River was well received critically as well, not as well as high previous screenplays, but a high 80s RottenTomatoes score and a mid 70s MetaCritic score bode well for this film. It is a well made crime film featuring a fantastic score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, expansive snowscapes filmed beautifully by Ben Richardson and features strong acting. It probably won't get nominated for Oscars and other awards, but Hell or High Water got a Best Picture nomination and was only a little more acclaimed.
So why bunch Wind River in with the likes of The Bye, Bye Man and The Great Wall (besides the fact that this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it?) Quite simply, while it shows a lot of promise it ultimately squanders a lot of that potential with a misguided last act. Also, let's be honest, you probably find this existence of this movie something that only seems vaguely familiar.
Wind River stars Jeremy Renner as Cory Lambert, a hunter on the remote Wind River Aboriginal Reserve in Wyoming working of the department of Fish and Wildlife. While investigating some cougars that have been killing livestock he finds the body of a dead girl. This prompts the arrival of FBI Agent Jane Banner (Olsen) to investigate what is quickly determined to be a rape and murder of a young Aboriginal woman. Banner is a doe-eyed inexperienced agent, completely out of her depth in the harsh, isolated Wyoming winter. She enlists the aide of Lambert, who has experience with a similar case in his past, who's hunting skills allow him to read tracks in the snow with savant like abilities.
The murder mystery aspect of this film is the best, most captivating part. The severity of the crime makes the urge to find the killer strong but the remoteness of the crime scene makes progress hard to come by. The isolated atmosphere is built up spectacularly, with Sheridan routinely reminding the audience (and Banner) that any and all help is hundred of miles away in a way that feels organic and never feels extraneous. This adds a survival element to the detective work with Banner forced to harden herself to fit the climate she finds herself in. In this remote, neglected area only the strong survive.
Wind River does a great job highlighting the problems in this Aboriginal reserve showcasing the complete lack of resources available to the few authority figures tasked with maintaining order and how unprepared and unfit outside help tends to be when it arrives. Problems like missing Aboriginal women on reserve land require a lot of complex work and effort to solve but because these people are so often swept under the rug any effort first requires the raising of public awareness. Sheridan does a great job with all of this assuming we skip the final third of the movie.
As the investigation heads towards a conclusion and it appears like the killers are found Sheridan decides that this movie doesn't need any sort of moral complexity that elevated his previous scripts. No, Wind River needs to be as black-and-white as possible to remove any uncomfortable feelings the audience might end up having towards its heroes. First, a flashback to the night of the crime firmly establishes the monstrosity of the culprits and then a shootout followed by a giant heaping of vigilante justice to wrap everything up. And just like that all moral complexity is gone and the uneasiness one might of felt at the end of Sicario is replaced by the uneasiness one might feel at the end of Falling Down. In the former case, a difficult situation is dealt with by unethical means justified by an-eye-for-an-eye mentality with lots of internal conflict between the characters about this solution that leaves the audience thinking. In the latter a simplistic solution is found by being an asshole because the other people were being assholes and the characters are all pretty cool about it to the point where the movie kinda endorses this behavior.
Wind River is much more the latter case wherein the complex problem of the rape and murder of Aboriginal women on sparse, isolated reserve lands is solved with vigilante justice. Sheridan attempts to walk this back a little with the final scene between Lambert and the father of the murdered girl but it is a case of too little, too late so when the movie ends on a graphic highlighting the unknown amount of missing Aboriginal women it feels like their crimes simply are unsolved because no super hunters have tracked down the killers and disposed of them. It's a shame Sheridan's murky moralities that were so well displayed with Sicario and Hell or High Water are reduced to that here.
Schurmann Score - 6/10
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Wind River stars Jeremy Renner as Cory Lambert, a hunter on the remote Wind River Aboriginal Reserve in Wyoming working of the department of Fish and Wildlife. While investigating some cougars that have been killing livestock he finds the body of a dead girl. This prompts the arrival of FBI Agent Jane Banner (Olsen) to investigate what is quickly determined to be a rape and murder of a young Aboriginal woman. Banner is a doe-eyed inexperienced agent, completely out of her depth in the harsh, isolated Wyoming winter. She enlists the aide of Lambert, who has experience with a similar case in his past, who's hunting skills allow him to read tracks in the snow with savant like abilities.
The murder mystery aspect of this film is the best, most captivating part. The severity of the crime makes the urge to find the killer strong but the remoteness of the crime scene makes progress hard to come by. The isolated atmosphere is built up spectacularly, with Sheridan routinely reminding the audience (and Banner) that any and all help is hundred of miles away in a way that feels organic and never feels extraneous. This adds a survival element to the detective work with Banner forced to harden herself to fit the climate she finds herself in. In this remote, neglected area only the strong survive.
Wind River does a great job highlighting the problems in this Aboriginal reserve showcasing the complete lack of resources available to the few authority figures tasked with maintaining order and how unprepared and unfit outside help tends to be when it arrives. Problems like missing Aboriginal women on reserve land require a lot of complex work and effort to solve but because these people are so often swept under the rug any effort first requires the raising of public awareness. Sheridan does a great job with all of this assuming we skip the final third of the movie.
As the investigation heads towards a conclusion and it appears like the killers are found Sheridan decides that this movie doesn't need any sort of moral complexity that elevated his previous scripts. No, Wind River needs to be as black-and-white as possible to remove any uncomfortable feelings the audience might end up having towards its heroes. First, a flashback to the night of the crime firmly establishes the monstrosity of the culprits and then a shootout followed by a giant heaping of vigilante justice to wrap everything up. And just like that all moral complexity is gone and the uneasiness one might of felt at the end of Sicario is replaced by the uneasiness one might feel at the end of Falling Down. In the former case, a difficult situation is dealt with by unethical means justified by an-eye-for-an-eye mentality with lots of internal conflict between the characters about this solution that leaves the audience thinking. In the latter a simplistic solution is found by being an asshole because the other people were being assholes and the characters are all pretty cool about it to the point where the movie kinda endorses this behavior.
Wind River is much more the latter case wherein the complex problem of the rape and murder of Aboriginal women on sparse, isolated reserve lands is solved with vigilante justice. Sheridan attempts to walk this back a little with the final scene between Lambert and the father of the murdered girl but it is a case of too little, too late so when the movie ends on a graphic highlighting the unknown amount of missing Aboriginal women it feels like their crimes simply are unsolved because no super hunters have tracked down the killers and disposed of them. It's a shame Sheridan's murky moralities that were so well displayed with Sicario and Hell or High Water are reduced to that here.
Schurmann Score - 6/10
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