Rookie FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) enlists the help of game tracker, Cory (Jeremy Renner).
WIND RIVER
Film Review by Marlene Ardoin
Taylor Sheridan, writer/director of last year’s “Hell or High Water,” appears to champion women in “Wind River.”
Sheridan points out how young, American Indian women get raped and disappear regularly, with no records to verify the crimes.
In the film, we discover that there are at least three young women, who have met this fate. There appears to be a serious cockroach infestation in the area.
So, who do the FBI send? A female FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) from Las Vegas, or is it Florida, is sent to Wyoming.
Jeremy Renner plays Cory Lambert, an effective and sharp-shooting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tracker. It appears that wild animals, who prey on livestock, are kept better track of than rapists and murderers on the reservation.
Rookie FBI special agent Jane Banner (Olsen) needs lessons on how to survive in the brutal Wyoming winter weather, and Cory (Renner) helps her out, so she enlists his help in her investigation.
The investigation leads us to an oil rig community, who are raping the reservation lands in yet another way.
The brother of the raped girl, Chip (Martin Sensmeier), is an addict, living in a trailer on the reservation. The impotence of the American Indians appears to be generational. Wyoming lands are a brutal and a hopeless place for the offspring.
In the script, Cory (Renner) chastises Chip for not doing more with his life. He tells him that he could have gone into the services or to college.
His sister, Natalie (Kelsey Chow) , seemed to have a happy high school life, according to the pictures of her.
But, as soon as she leaves school, at 18, she is released from any adult instruction or direction. I guess this is what happened to her brother, Chip, as well.
Back to our female FBI agent, she proves that she has as much grit as she has humility in her situation.
The one thing that rubbed me the wrong way, was the graphicness of the rape scene as it unfolded. The situation was believable and just a little bit too pornographic for my taste, which seems to be a Sheridan signature move.
Is Sheridan suggesting that the American Indians are to blame? Or, is there something wrong with how the US government deals with the American Indian population?
Either way, the American Indians are portrayed as victims. Why can’t they be the heroes in this story? And why does the director choose non-American Indians to play their roles?
By hero, I do not mean running six miles barefoot in the snow.
If there is one thing the American Indians do not need, it is another tale of how badly they have become victims.
Bio of writer/director Taylor Sheridan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Sheridan
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9/12/2017 # Wind River