Wind River

“Wind River” opens with an intense moment: a young girl running barefoot in the bleak Wyoming snow.  During the course of this engaging movie, we find out who she is, where she is, and why she is running.  This is a great crime drama, along the lines of “Hell or High Water”.  Taylor Sheridan wrote  both movies and has tried his hand at directing this one.  What a great job at that!  This is a character driven drama with gut wrenching performances by Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Gil Birmingham, Graham Greene and Jon Bernthal.  Something horrific has happened on the Wind River Reservation and rookie FBI agent Olsen teams with game tracker Renner who is haunted by a past tragedy.  There are no annoying subplots or even periods or comic relief, just a well-told story.  If you liked “Hell or High Water” you are going to enjoy this one too.  Don’t look for a sweet happy ending, as this movie will show us, on the reservation there are no happy endings, only a kind of redemption.  This is a little Indie movie though, so if you want to see it on a big screen (and you really should) HURRY!