Great neo-Western crime thrillers are rare but Taylor Sheridan’s take on the genre gave up one very enthralling film that stars two Avengers actors from MCU. Sheridan’s 2017 crime thriller Wind River (not to be confused with the 2000 movie of the same name) reunites Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner which also stars Marvel star Jon Bernthal.
Wind River Is A Gripping Tale Of Devastating Events
MCU stars Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner in Wind River. Image Credit: The Weinstein Company
Wind River is and should always be one of the most important films in the neo-Western genre, not for Taylor Sheridan’s take on the serious events based on the harrowing experiences of missing women on the women of the Indigenous American community. The narrative is inherently dark as the movie attempts to highlight the importance of the serious issue almost undetected by the radar— the s-xual violence and murder of Indigenous American Women.
Sheridan who previously wrote acclaimed movies including The Sicario and Hell or High Water made his directorial debut with Wind River and the indie film gave him the creative freedom to enhance the narrative with gripping realism with suspense in almost every corner.
Set in frozen Wyoming the struggle in the movie further extends to the harsh freezing conditions that Indian reservations must endure as the primary way of survival, also, the movie is a constant reminder of the terrain but the Indigenous.
Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner Follows A Murder Mystery
Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner in Wind River. Image Credit: The Weinstein Company
Jeremy Renner plays Cory Lambert, a predator hunter (primarily Wolf), who discovers the frozen body of 18-year-old Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Asbille) from the Northern Arapaho tribe. Jane Banner played by Elizabeth Olsen, an FBI agent, was deployed for the case to investigate potential homicide. Also, Natalie’s autopsy shows signs of blunt trauma and r-pe which propelled the Banner to dive deep into the investigation but the locals were not ready to accept another authoritative figure weighing into their landscape.
The gravity of the case then prompted her to team up with Lambert who is familiar with the terrain, to join Banner to solve the mysteries surrounding Natalie’s death. Lambert had to deal with “the tragedy in his past and you find out kind of later on the picture about it and then the movie opens up discovering a dead body as he’s tracking a mountain lion I believe and that’s what Elizabeth’s character comes in as FBI agent to help we get teamed up together to solve the murder.” Renner said in a BUILD Series interview.
Lambert was allowed in the locality as he was the hunter of the predators after their live stocks but the unsettling horror in the background called Banned to land on the case.
“A lot of people come to Native Americans wanting something from their world,” Taylor Sheridan said of the plight of the community while discussing the movie with The Guardian.
“The big joke on reservations is that the white guy shows up and goes ‘I’m Native American, my grandmother is Cherokee’. So if you show up on the reservation they’ll ask you, ‘Is your grandmother Cherokee?’ They’ll take the piss out of you. Because that’s what everyone says and there’s nothing to disprove it,” he added.
It was quite a similar feeling as Banner entered their terrain, they found it hard to trust her despite the grave darkness looming above the snow. The importance of movie has different shades, primarily the devastating murder and the heinous crimes that reflect the hyper-realistic depiction of the tragedies that have affected the natives to the core.
Wind River also stars Graham Greene, Gil Birmingham, Julia Jones, and co.
Stream Wind River on The Roku Channel.
