Wind River (2017) **1/2

“Luck don't live out here.” This is how federal wildlife officer Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) describes the cold, brutal, beautiful landscape that is Wyoming. On the Wind River Indian Reservation, while tracking mountain lions, Cory discovers the frozen body of an American Indian girl, a local teenager. She appears to have been raped, and then to have frozen to death while fleeing across the frozen wilds. FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) is dispatched from Las Vegas to investigate. Woefully unprepared for the cold and the lack of police resources on the reservation, Jane enlists Cory's help. Together, they mine the underbelly of the reservation to learn the truth.

“Wind River” is written and directed by Taylor Sheridan, who also did "Sicario."  Like “Sicario,” I enjoyed “Wind River” while watching it, but found that it fell apart a bit at the end. The characters start doing things that make no sense. Watching the movie, I was mostly awed by the gorgeous scenery and Jeremy Renner's cool-ass tracker character, but afterwards quickly found myself annoyed by some of the plot holes.

This is a problem I have mentioned with some other films. When a book or movie is truly well-written, the action is character-driven. By that, I mean that the writer creates a set of characters, places them in a situation, and the action that flows is what those characters would naturally do in that situation. When a writer gets lazy, they make their characters do things that make no sense, in order to short-cut the plot where they need it to go. “Wind River”suffers from that, and it ruins what should be a great murder mystery, with great actors in a great location. As it is, the film has some entertainment value, but for me it's just a bit too trite, too outlandish, and, like a guy named Sheridan making a movie about Wyoming, a bit too on-the-nose.

2.5 stars out of 5