The following review makes reference to the 2017 film Wind River, and does not contain spoilers of any type.

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Year: 2017 Category: Neo-Western, Murder Mystery. Director: Taylor Sheridan. Cast: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Julia Jones, Graham Greene, Jon Bernthal, Matthew Del Negro, Kelsey Chow, Gil Birmingham, Ian Bohen, Martin Sensmeier, Hugh Dillon, Eric Lange, Mason D. Davis, James Jordan, Teo Briones, Tara Karsian.

Plot

A young FBI agent teams up with a local veteran tracker to investigate the murder of a young woman on a Native American reservation.

Opinion

During a winter season in Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, Cory Lambert, a hunter, takes his son with his grandfather, the husband of his ex-wife, and then begins to track down the predator who attacked his ex-father-in-law's livestock, but on the way he meets the body of Natalie Hanson, an 18-year-old girl. Soon the FBI special agent Jane Banner arrives at the crime scene. While there, Jane notices all the shortcomings of the town's police department, which receives virtually no help from the government, so asks Cory Lambert for help.

Subsequently the autopsy confirms that Natalie Hanson was raped before she died, so everything seems to indicate that it was a murder, however, Jane can not ask for help from the FBI to continue with the investigation, because Natalie died due to a pulmonary hemorrhage caused by rapid inhalation of sub-zero air, exactly as Cory had said before the autopsy. So Jane, Cory and Ben Shoyo, the Tribal Police Chief, decide to follow all the clues to solve the case.

Taylor Sheridan, known by many to act in Sons of Anarchy, but who was writer of Sicario or the magnificent Hell or High Water, and now not only wrote the script of Wind River but also directed the film, and does both very well. The staging and photography of the film is very good, the climate and the hostility of that world is captured perfectly.

The performance of Jeremy Renner was fine, but neither gives us a special performance or outside of what he usually does. Elizabeth Olsen does it well, her character is credible even though the film does not delve into even a little about her character or her past. The rest of the performances are acceptable, however, I do not think the film has any performance that is excellent or magnificent.

Basically it is a film that tells a simple story, but it is the small details that make the film slightly raise its level. A murder carried out under very harsh weather conditions, an FBI agent, the small local police department, and a hunter who has taken the matter personally, the clues are few, but solving this crime is not very difficult either.

The film serves as entertainment but not much more, it raises a reflection on the treatment that has been given to the Native American population and their living conditions, but I am not sure that it does it in the best way.

Trailer

Score

7/10

Acceptable direction, good script, good performances, and a well done photography work. It is acceptably entertaining, but neither does it have anything necessarily special. At the time of publishing this review the film is available in the Netflix catalog for the following countries: Canada, United Kingdom and the United States.