AUGUST 31, 2017
Two of my very favorite films over the past several years have been “Sicario,” (#5 on my list of the 10 Best Films of 2015), a tense crime thriller demonstrating the impossibility of winning the drug war on the U.S./Mexico border, and “Hell or High Water” (my #2 film of 2016), an old-fashioned cops-and-robbers film set among the economically struggling towns of this decade in the Southwest.
Except for their quality, these two films might seem to have not much in common. However, they do share one crucial asset: screenwriter Taylor Sheridan.
Sheridan began his career as an actor, achieving some fame as Deputy Chief David Hale on the FX series “Sons of Anarchy,” but he turned to screenwriting when he was in his early 40s. The first script he ever wrote was “Sicario,” knocking it out of the park on his first swing, and his second was “Hell,” for which he received an Academy Award nomination.
Needless to say, anticipation was high for his third script, “Wind River,” which also marks his debut as director, as well.
Is “Wind River” up to the quality of his first two scripts? I can’t say that it is, but remember those other two films had superb veteran craftsmen as directors bringing them to life. For a newbie, “Wind River” proves that Sheridan shows enormous promise as a director, and as a screenwriter, he’s still one of the best around.
Once again, we’re in the world of the mystery thriller with “Wind River.” The film begins, unsurprisingly, with the discovery of a body, a young Native American teen, barefoot and face down in the snow near her Wyoming town. Her body is found by Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), who works for the Fish and Wildlife Service, but because the girl’s body was found on Federal land, any investigation will have to wait until the FBI comes in.
The agent they send in is a rookie, Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), who arrives all gung-ho, ready to partner up with Lambert, but it soon becomes clear that she’s in way over her head. This echoes the set-up of “Sicario,” in which Emily Blunt’s morally-crusading agent got plunked into the middle of a drug war and found that morality has nothing to do with the war being waged. (But at least it was the point of that movie.) Here, despite Olsen’s best efforts, Banner never really learns from the people around her and remains underwater, so Lambert takes charge. This is the one real weakness in the script.
What’s a strength, however, is Sheridan’s superb writing of the many Native American characters with whom Lambert interacts, and Sheridan is smart enough to cast a strong lineup of NA actors, including Oscar nominee Graham Greene and “Hell’s” Gil Birmingham, whose scenes with Renner are among the most open-hearted in the film. After a while, you begin to look forward far more to their scenes than to solving the big whodunnit As if he needed one, “Wind River” is an impressive calling card for Sheridan as a director.
If that’s not enough, if you happen to be living in a climate that’s currently sweltering (as I am), the chilly confines of the snow-covered “Wind River” offer fine comfort indeed.
GRADE: B+
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