Wind River

Sicario and Hell or High Water screenwriter Taylor Sheridan makes his directorial debut with Wind River, a dour murder-mystery set on the desolate Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Jeremy Renner gives a perfunctory lead performance as Cory Lambert, a grieving father employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a predator hunter on the reservation. While tracking a family of mountain lions in the snow, Cory stumbles across the frozen body of a dead Native American girl, a discovery that rekindles repressed memories of his own deceased daughter. Cory assists the woefully unprepared FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) who gets sent to investigate, but he may be harboring his own vigilante agenda. Wind River builds slowly, and a little of Sheridan’s klutzy predator-prey symbolism goes a long way, but he also shows a genuine knack for steadily building tension, finally allowing it to explode in an excellent final act. D.B.