Friday, September 1, 2017

Wind River

As I woke up this past Saturday morning to the look, feel and sound of pounding water hitting my window, I eventually came to the realization that it wasn’t the gin swirling around in my head like a snow globe that was causing this alarming experience, but it was in fact Tropical Storm Harvey announcing its arrival. I had already prepared myself for a long weekend of hunkering down by stocking up on my new favorite terrible beer in Montucky and 2 lbs. of fajita meat so I could relive my days as a Black hick in Victoria, TX. You see, growing up in a town like that, you’re used to doing nothing but getting drunk and watching terrible movies mainly because it beat mudding in your dually truck with other hicks or chasing around the neighbor’s chickens for sport; so I was more than prepared for what these next few days had in store.

But hey, I’m not here to trash Victoria as my heart and my prayers go out to them right now. I instead want to talk about why I have this sudden fascination with the otherwise nondescript state of Wyoming. Outside of Yellowstone Park (and honestly I had forgotten that that was even there until recently), I only associate awful things with this state! My dentist went there to attend a University of Texas football game a few years ago and pretty much never came back! Did he die in the mountains after being exposed to their freezing temperatures in August or did he simply fall in love with a modern day Pocahontas, only to be killed by the locals for being the white R. Kelly? Come on now, everyone knows that Pocahontas was underage!

Well in either case, all I want to say to him right now is "My teeth hurt doc! Leave that peyote behind that you found on the reservation and come hook a brother up! I mean, it’s only a matter of time before you’re eaten alive by a bear or a mountain lion so you may as well come back to the land of shotguns and pretty women so you can live a more fulfilling life!"

But moving on, when the movie Wind River came out recently, I was there the opening weekend; and not just because it’s about the murder of a young girl in the woods of Wyoming but because it’s nice to actually see a healthy Olson girl (Elizabeth) get some screen time for a change. Why hasn’t anyone told her twin sisters that the Kate Moss anorexic look went out twenty years ago? Go get some cheeseburgers girls!

Anyway, Wind River is the story of a young and bright eyed FBI agent named Jane (Olson) who decides to team up with the local game tracker Cory (Jeremy Renner) to solve the mysterious murder of a young girl on an Indian reservation in the middle of snow covered Wyoming. Jane is from Florida, so she has no idea about how to properly dress for this type of weather and nearly dies within the first 5 minutes of being exposed to the air. It’s also a different world as it’s not only a unique culture with colorful characters but it’s an area that still feels like the land that America forgot. They have minimal public funded resources and very few opportunities for locals to escape the world they grew up in, so naturally they still harbor ill feelings towards anyone of the fairer skin.

Well even though he qualifies as someone the community would normally hate, Cory has been in the area for so long that he’s for the most part accepted and trusted by everyone. So naturally Jane relies on him to not only track clues in this rough terrain and adapt to the ways of the reservation but to also simply survive in the sometimes below zero temperatures.

This alone makes this an interesting film but what helps it stand out from other indie thrillers that have come out recently is Cory’s weird connection to the case. He not only knows the family of the girl who was found but the reason he and his Native American wife are separated is because their daughter died in a similar fashion just a few years earlier. So now he’s once again struggling to deal with the memories of this tragedy that have crept back into his life but this time around he’s hoping to find answers of some sort to provide him and his family some closure.

Writer and director, Taylor Sheridan, who also wrote Sicario and Hell and High Water, delivers yet again as he has a way of taking you into the dark underworld of humanity’s worst without relying on the parlor tricks of over exaggeration or the reliance of gruesome shock value to do so. He gives you an in depth look into issues we normally want to turn a blind eye to by helping us find something or someone we can connect with by telling their painful stories. And this is where Renner and Olson shine. We’ve all had to find a way to press on in life even if the absolute worst has happened to us or we’ve all been in over our heads while trying to make a name for ourselves in our chosen professions. And that’s what’s so great about this film, the actors that we normally see in Marvel movies seem like your ordinary next door neighbors, even if it is only for two hours.

This movie will not only scare and depress you but it will also enlighten you about a world that we typically only think about when we want to gamble; and it’s because of this that I give it a rating of very FRESH!

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