The
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service closely collaborates with indigenous tribes on
conservation efforts, but there are tensions over its administration of the
eagle feather permit system. Few people understand the complexity of these relationships
better than Fish & Wildlife Agent Cory Lambert. His ex-wife is Native
American. They still have a young son, but their teen daughter was murdered
under circumstances that make it unlikely the killer will ever be discovered.
As a result, Lambert is more than willing to assist a rookie FBI agent investigate
the subsequent murder of his daughter’s best friend in Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
Time
has passed, but Lambert has not fully healed. However, he has remained as diligent
as ever on the job. When wild predators attack livestock, Lambert is the one
called to track them down. He knows the area, so he is the one to take Special
Agent Jane Banner to view the freshly discovered body of Natalie Hanson. Unlike
most agents called to work murders on Federal land, Banner would like to see
some justice done, but she knows she will not get very far without Lambert.
Having
reasonably good relations with the Shoshone and Arapaho, Lambert also has
better luck getting the locals to talk. That includes Hanson’s distraught
father, who extracts a promise from Lambert to use his skills as a hunter as
well as a tracker, even if Hanson’s lowlife brother and her outsider boyfriend
turn out to be suspects.
Just
when you thought American thrillers had given up the ghost, Sheridan bags and
tags a heck of a trophy with WR. Best
known as the screenwriter of Hell or High Water, Sheridan shows the same flair for cutting dialogue and gritty
criminal scenarios. However, the stakes at play in WR run far deeper and darker.
As
Lambert, Jeremy Renner rises to the occasion, knocking the wind out of viewers
with the downright shocking emotional rawness of his performance. Granted, he
is known for his brooding, tightly-wound work, but this raises his game to a
whole new level. Frankly, it is hard for Elizabeth Olsen’s Banner to compare
head-to-head, but she asserts herself well in the third act action scenes. Of
course, it is nice to see Graham Greene do his thing as the tribal police
chief. Yet, Jon Bernthal and Kelsey Chow possibly upstage everyone as Hanson
and her lover in a surprisingly long and brutal (but absolutely appropriate)
flashback sequence.
