Wind River

A crisp, snowy crime movie with a chilling veneer. In the middle of the wilderness, hunter Cory Lambert finds the body of a raped Indian girl whose lungs burst in the frost. Who is responsible? The story is simple, but its strength lies in details. Elaborate, lifelike characters (typical Renner) and an atmosphere of ruin hides behind every footstep in the snow. The slow tempo suits the story perfectly. Recriminations, heart-searching, strong emotions. Action is fairly scarce, but the finale shootout is worth it. Very happy. P.S: A perfect explanation for why to be wary of seemingly friendly drunks. (21/10/2017)

Wind River is a very chilling thriller set in Wyoming. Jeremy Renner (who incidentally is slowly turning from action hero to Oscar-winning actor), plays an excellent tracker and hunger who, together with an FBI agent played by Elizabeth Olsen, investigate the death of an Indian girl. Cool setting, Indians, great acting, a decent amount of suspense, heightened emotions and escalating atmosphere culminating in an impressive shootout, which is undoubtedly the best scene of the film. If it wasn't for the slower opening I would have gone even higher with the rating. Anyway, a solid affair from an unusual setting. The final monologue underlines the strength of the whole film. 80% (03/10/2017)

As expected, Sheridan presents himself as a significantly better screenwriter than a director. Even so, he is not ridiculous in his new role, he certainly does not spoil anything (he even delivers good performance), but surprisingly he cannot take full advantage of the possibilities that his own topic provides him with. And where it is more than obvious it´s the work with the environment. Where Villeneuve/Mackenzie (and I'd bet Sollima too) work with the sketched environment of arid depopulated plains as an integral part and reflection of the soul, almost the main character, so all the whining of the freezing wind, the crunching of snow under snowshoes and endless freezing distances do not fulfill this role to the extent that would be appropriate. In the beginning, they do (and in a captivating way), but it then it seems that he said to himself as if he has already given too much space to it, and in the second half he takes the ruthless landscape and its role for granted. And this is an unjustifiable mistake for a this kind of movie. Otherwise there is nothing to complain about. It's exactly the dense minimalist taciturn "McCarthy" supra-genre rough old-school contribution with an overlap building on the magnificently profiled characters that one would expect from Sheridan. (09/07/2017)

If you like movies and watch a large number of them every month, including the new ones, then you will appreciate a movie that is written so perfectly from start to finish that it's a pleasure to watch. That's probably why I would simply describe why I gave the film five stars. I had a feeling that from the beginning till the end I was watching a crime film with everything it entails. There were no complicated explanations, but an amazingly chilly atmosphere and wonderful locations. Everything fits together perfectly, and you enjoy not only the suffering of Elizabeth Olsen, but also Jeremy Renner, who became the lone fighter for justice the moment he put on the white overalls and ventured alone into the wild. I was excited. I didn’t miss a single minute of this movie. And the best part is that you can really feel that Taylor Sheridan is behind all of that. You can sense the chilling atmosphere of Sicario, but also the dangerous shoot offs of the film Hell or High Water. And yet you know that this film is in its way completely unique. Hopefully, Sheridan will maintain that diligence. When it comes to filmmaking craft, Wind River is one of the best films I saw in 2017. (12/10/2017)

Taylor Sheridan isn't as good a director as Denis Villeneuve, but he learned a lot from him, both good (his work with landscapes, drawing out the suspense to the limits of tolerability, shocking explosions of violence) and bad (“deliberateness” and unnecessary literalness). The investigation of the crime serves mainly as a means to create an atmosphere of ruination and total disillusion (as in film noir, in which the revealing of the perpetrator often occurs rather by chance than as the result of piecing together individual clues) and as an excuse to uncover something rotten in the midst of the community, similarly as in Top of the Lake and Wilderness, though on a much smaller area, which takes its toll in the form of overwrought scenes that try to say too much at once (a woman sits in her bedroom, crying and cutting her arm; another woman sees her, closes the door without a word and leaves). Furthermore, the realistic tone is disturbed by balladic dialogue about the frozen hellscape and undefeatable evil (which would have come across much better in the pages of a book) and the use of western archetypes, shifting the drama of people anchored in a particular social reality to a timeless parable about hunters and predators and the clash of two declining cultures. The combining of these two narrative levels could have been smoother and the treatment of the female protagonist lost among men who much better understand what’s happening around them didn’t have to be so reminiscent of Sicario, and sometimes it might have been enough for the characters to simply sit and be quiet, but the catharsis that Wind River delivers in the climax is so powerful that it absolutely outweighs the unconvincingness of the film’s individual parts. 75% (10/07/2017)