Wind River: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Hunts a Murderer

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.

There is nothing cheap about Sheridan’s narrative. Like Paul Kersey in the original Death Wish, Lambert will have to settle for vicarious payback, if he can track down the person or persons responsible for Hanson’s death. Sheridan and cinematographer Ben Richardson make the most of the frozen locales, creating a snowbound modern western that nicely compliments the East Texas desolation of High Water. Lean, mean, and intensely resonant, Wind River is very highly recommended when it opens this Friday (8/4) in New York and Los Angeles.

Silent House: Indie Darling Turns Scream Queen

The multiplex kids probably have never seen Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (let alone Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark), so the supposed single continuous “real-time” tracking shot making up the latest indyish-genre outing from Open Water co-directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau might seem like a fresh gimmick to them. Remaking the recent Uruguayan horror movie (including the aforementioned uninterrupted take), they show fewer seams than Hitchcock but more distracting narrative issues come to the fore in their remake, Silent House (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Sarah’s family had some good times in their lake house, but vandals and weather damage have taken a toll. Her father and Uncle Peter are trying to restore it, but their bickering makes the going slow. It looks peaceful outside, but with the windows boarded up and the power kaput, the house is pitch dark inside, even during high noon. It would be a scary place to be locked in with a psycho killer, which will be the case for Sarah. After she establishes the lack of phone lines and cell service with an old childhood chum she cannot remember, her menacing begins.

When it comes to the mechanics of skulking about the old dark house, Silent is more than competent. However, when it drops its clues, they clang like anvils. Frankly, anyone who isn’t on to the big twist by the half hour mark must be remarkably guileless, even if they have not seen the Uruguayan original. Unfortunately, this makes it devilishly difficult to buy into Silent as a funhouse ride. Instead, viewers will more likely feel as if they are watching the film play out the string.

Still the toast of the indie circuit for her work in Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen handles the screen queen duties rather capably. There is actually more to Sarah than the typical teens chased through slasher movies, which Olsen evokes quite convincingly. However, Adam Trese and Eric Sheffer Stevens are just glaringly miscast as Papa John and Uncle Peter respectively, looking more like aging hipsters on a photo shoot for Restoration Hardware than adults with any kind of connection to the real world.

Ironically, the one take device is the least distracting aspect of the film. Indeed, the filmmakers should avoid the game of poker, because they display all kinds of “tells.” As a result, the creepy vibe and some nice work from Olsen, duly framed to maximize viewer leering, largely go to waste. For the curious, Silent House opens today in New York at several theaters, including the Regal Union Square.