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Review: Wind River (dir. by Taylor Sheridan)

Posted on by Arleigh

“Luck don’t live out here.” — Cory Lambert

Wind River is a gripping crime thriller set against the stark, frozen backdrop of Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation, where U.S. Fish and Wildlife tracker Cory Lambert teams up with rookie FBI agent Jane Banner to investigate the brutal death of a young Native American woman named Natalie Hanson. Wind River marks the third film in Taylor Sheridan’s American Frontier trilogy that he wrote—following Sicario and Hell or High Water—and it’s the first where Sheridan steps into the director’s chair himself, bringing his sharp eye for gritty realism to the helm. Clocking in at just under two hours, it delivers a mostly positive experience through strong performances, atmospheric visuals, and a script that builds suspense without unnecessary flash, though it occasionally leans on familiar tropes.

Right from the opening moments, Wind River immerses you in a world of isolation and harsh beauty. Snow-covered plains stretch endlessly under a pale sky, and the crunch of boots on ice sets an immediate tone of vulnerability. Cory, played with quiet intensity by Jeremy Renner, discovers Natalie’s frozen body while tracking a mountain lion that’s been preying on livestock. She’s barefoot, half-naked, and miles from any help—details that hit hard and underscore the film’s core mystery: what happened to her, and why does it feel like no one cares? Renner nails the role of a man haunted by his own past loss—his teenage daughter died under mysterious circumstances a few years back—making Cory a grounded everyman rather than a superheroic cowboy. His subtle grief adds layers to every scene, turning routine investigation beats into something personal and raw.

Enter Elizabeth Olsen as Jane Banner, the FBI agent flown in from Vegas who’s clearly out of her depth in sub-zero temperatures and jurisdictional limbo. Olsen brings a mix of determination and wide-eyed realism to the part, avoiding the cliché of the big-city hotshot who learns frontier wisdom overnight. She’s tough but human—hypothermic after a chase, throwing up from the cold, yet pushing through because Natalie deserves justice. The dynamic between Cory and Jane is one of the film’s highlights: no forced romance, just mutual respect born from necessity. Sheridan smartly lets their partnership evolve organically, with Cory’s local knowledge filling Jane’s gaps in protocol and reservation politics. It’s refreshing to see two leads click without sparks flying, focusing instead on shared purpose amid tragedy.

The script shines in its efficient storytelling. Sheridan wastes no time on exposition dumps; instead, he weaves backstory through quiet conversations and flashbacks that pack emotional punch. We learn about the epidemic of missing Indigenous women—thousands vanish yearly, often ignored by media and law enforcement—via stark statistics flashed on screen and through the eyes of Natalie’s family. Gil Birmingham delivers a heartbreaking performance as her father, Martin, a stoic oil rig worker whose rage simmers beneath a veneer of resignation. His scenes with Cory, especially a late-night talk by a bonfire, cut deep, exploring themes of fatherly failure and systemic neglect without preaching. Birmingham’s restrained power elevates what could have been a stock grieving parent into a standout supporting role.

Visually, Wind River is a stunner, thanks to cinematographer Ben Richardson. Those vast, snowy expanses aren’t just pretty—they mirror the characters’ emotional desolation and amplify the stakes. An early tracking sequence, with Cory following Natalie’s footprints in the snow, builds dread masterfully, the silence broken only by wind and labored breaths. The film shifts tones seamlessly: slow-burn investigation gives way to visceral action in the third act, including a raid on an oil site trailer that’s tense, realistic, and over in a flash—no prolonged shootouts or slow-mo heroics. Sound design plays a big role too; the howling wind and muffled gunshots make every moment feel immediate and unforgiving.

Sheridan’s direction keeps things taut without rushing the build-up. This is a slow-burner that earns its pace, letting tension simmer through everyday details like jurisdictional squabbles with underfunded tribal police or Cory teaching Jane to dress for the cold. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’s score is another winner—sparse, haunting electronics that evoke loneliness rather than bombast. It underscores key scenes without overpowering them, much like the film itself avoids Hollywood excess.

That said, Wind River has its stumbles. Pacing dips in the middle, with some dialogue-heavy stretches that spell out themes a tad too explicitly—like chats about reservation poverty or ignored crimes. It can feel heavy-handed, pulling you out of the immersion. A few characters, like the bumbling FBI contingent or security guards, border on caricature, though the leads stay nuanced. The violence, while sparse and purposeful, includes a harrowing assault scene that’s tough to watch; it’s crucial to the story but might overwhelm sensitive viewers. And while the film tackles real issues facing Native communities, some critics note it centers white protagonists in a Native story, though Sheridan consulted tribal members and cast authentically.

Still, these are minor gripes in a film that largely succeeds on its own terms, especially as the capstone to Sheridan’s trilogy exploring America’s frayed edges. The ending delivers catharsis without easy answers, leaving you with a chill that lingers. Cory gets a measure of redemption, Jane gains hard-won insight, and the reservation’s harsh realities feel unflinchingly real. It’s the kind of movie that sticks because it respects your intelligence—connecting dots about corruption, indifference, and human cost without hand-holding.

What elevates Wind River above standard thrillers is its humanity. Every character, even antagonists, feels fleshed out rather than villainous stock. The oil workers aren’t cartoon evil; they’re desperate men making brutal choices in a forgotten corner of America. Sheridan, drawing from his own ranching background, captures blue-collar grit authentically—no glamour, just survival. Renner’s Cory hunts for a living, bottles his pain, and bonds with his ex-wife’s new family in tender asides that ground the procedural. Olsen’s Jane evolves from outsider to advocate, her arc subtle but satisfying.

The film’s relevance hasn’t faded since its 2017 release. With ongoing conversations around Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), it spotlights a crisis stats show claims over 5,000 cases annually, many unsolved due to jurisdictional messes. Wind River doesn’t solve it but demands attention, blending genre thrills with advocacy seamlessly.

In a crowded field of crime dramas, Wind River stands out for its chill factor, both literal and figurative. It’s not reinventing the wheel, but Sheridan proves he’s a triple threat: writer, director, voice for the voiceless. Renner and Olsen lead a tight ensemble, and the Wyoming wilderness becomes a character itself. If you dig thoughtful thrillers like Hell or High Water or Sicario, this one’s essential. It’s mostly positive vibes from me—intense, moving, and worth cranking up the thermostat for.

Sheridan’s ear for dialogue keeps things natural—terse exchanges crackle with subtext, like Cory’s line to Martin about enduring loss as a father that hits like a gut punch with simple words carrying profound weight. The film trusts silence too; long shots of characters staring into the void say more than monologues ever could, while technically it’s polished with editing that snaps during action and breathes during reflection. Even smaller roles shine—Kelsey Asbille as Natalie brings fire in limited screen time, and James Jordan plays an irredeemable private security contractor so well. Balanced against its preachiness, Wind River earns its emotional heft, dragging occasionally sure, but the payoff of an explosive finale and quiet closure makes it worthwhile, with power in inevitability and quiet fury as Sheridan avoids exploitative rape-revenge clichés to focus on aftermath and accountability.

Wind River delivers assured direction in Sheridan’s feature debut, memorable performances, and a compelling story that resonates. It refreshes the thriller genre with its blend of tension and substance.

Review: Hell of High Water (dir. by David MacKenzie)

Posted on by Arleigh

“I’ve been poor my whole life… like a disease passing from generation to generation. But not my boys, not anymore.” == Toby Howard

Hell or High Water is a gritty neo-Western that captures the desperation of rural America with sharp dialogue and tense heists. Directed by David Mackenzie and written by Taylor Sheridan, it stars Chris Pine and Ben Foster as brothers robbing banks across West Texas to save their family ranch. As the second film in Sheridan’s American Frontier Trilogy, it dives deep into economic despair on the fraying edges of modern America, carving out a raw, personal tale of survival amid systemic rot.

The story kicks off with Toby Howard (Pine), a quiet divorced dad scraping by at a casino, teaming up with his wild older brother Tanner (Foster), fresh out of prison and itching for chaos, for a string of quick bank jobs. They’re targeting branches of the Texas Midlands Bank, the same predatory outfit that’s been bleeding their late mother’s ranch dry with reverse mortgages that ballooned after her death. Toby’s motive is pure and heartbreaking: he wants to pay off the debt and hand the property—now sitting on untapped oil reserves—to his estranged kids, breaking a multi-generational cycle of poverty that’s crushed their family under debt, divorce, and dead-end jobs. It’s not about greed; it’s survival, wrapped in a fierce code of brotherly loyalty that feels timeless, echoing the blood oaths of classic Westerns like The Searchers or Unforgiven. Sheridan builds this setup methodically, letting the brothers’ quiet desperation simmer before the first robbery, making their partnership feel inevitable and doomed from the start. You get these early glimpses of their bond—Toby’s measured calm clashing with Tanner’s explosive energy—over shared meals or late-night drives, hinting at the fractures that prison and hardship have carved into their lives.

What stands out right away is how the film paints West Texas as its own brutal character—dusty highways stretching into infinity, faded diners serving coffee and Whataburger breakfast tacos, ghost towns where the only new construction is more banks or payday loan shacks preying on the broke. Giles Nuttgens’ cinematography turns the landscape into a vast, unforgiving canvas, with wide shots of endless plains, shimmering heat haze, and abandoned oil pumps that mirror the characters’ isolation and the weight of their choices. The visuals aren’t flashy; they’re oppressive, framing lone figures against horizons that swallow them whole, emphasizing how small these men feel against the indifferent sprawl. Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score adds a haunting twang—sparse piano notes, eerie strings, and subtle guitar plucks that build tension without ever overpowering the dialogue or action. It’s masterfully subtle, letting the silence between robberies speak volumes about the boredom, hopelessness, and fleeting camaraderie of these small, overlooked lives in flyover country. Even the sound design nails it: the rumble of getaway trucks, the click of slot machines in casinos, the distant wail of sirens—all weaving a sonic tapestry of gritty realism.

Chris Pine shines as Toby, completely shedding his action-hero polish for a layered everyman performance full of bottled-up resolve and quiet pain. You see the weight of his failures—a loveless marriage shattered, kids he barely knows living hours away—in every furrowed glance, every deliberate pause before he pulls a mask down. He’s the planner, the reluctant criminal whose moral compass wavers just enough to justify the heists in his mind, but you sense the toll it’s taking, like a man grinding his teeth through every moral compromise. Ben Foster, though, steals every scene he’s in as Tanner, the hothead ex-con with a wolfish grin that barely masks his pent-up rage and damage. His unhinged energy explodes during the heists—like firing warning shots at terrified tellers or flipping off pursuing cops mid-chase—but it’s always undercut by real pathos; years in prison have broken something fundamental in him, turning brotherly love into a volatile lifeline. Their dynamic is the beating heart of the film—casual banter over stolen cars, casino poker games, or roadside Whataburger runs feels achingly genuine, a brief respite from the doom that’s closing in. Moments like Tanner teasing Toby about his ex-wife or the brothers sharing a rare laugh humanize them, making their inevitable collision with fate hit that much harder.

Then there’s the pursuit side of the equation: Texas Rangers Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and his partner Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), who provide the perfect counterpoint to the brothers’ frenzy. Bridges chews the scenery with gleeful abandon as the grizzled vet nearing retirement, obsessed with cracking one last big case before hanging it up. His folksy drawl delivers casual racist jabs at his Native American partner—not out of outright malice, but as a form of twisted, old-school affection that reveals Marcus’s own deep-seated insecurities about aging and obsolescence. It’s uncomfortable, authentic, and played with such charm that it lands as character revelation rather than cheap shock. Birmingham matches him beat for beat with deadpan comebacks that land like quiet thunder, turning their stakeouts into a buddy-cop routine laced with sharp cultural commentary. Chats about diner waitresses’ curves, Comanche history, or the ethics of bank robbery add unexpected levity and depth, transforming the cat-and-mouse chase into something richer, almost philosophical, amid the choking West Texas dust. Bridges’ Marcus isn’t just hunting criminals; he’s confronting his own mortality, piecing together the brothers’ pattern like a puzzle that might define his legacy.

Taylor Sheridan’s script nails modern American malaise without ever slipping into preachiness or melodrama. Poverty isn’t some abstract talking point; it’s visceral—Toby’s trailer-park existence with its peeling paint and flickering lights, the single mom’s quiet despair over her mortgage payments, the rusted oil rigs promising riches that never trickle down to anyone local. The banks emerge as the true villains, plastering billboards with false salvation (“Texas Midlands: Your Friend in Need”) while gobbling up ranches through fine-print loopholes and aggressive collections. Sheridan weaves in these details organically—no info-dumps, just overheard conversations at diners or glimpses of foreclosure signs dotting the highway—that build a world where desperation breeds crime. Violence erupts organically from this pressure cooker—robbers improvise with stolen cars and sawn-off shotguns, rangers swap hunches over lukewarm diner coffee—not in overblown Hollywood set pieces, but in raw, consequential bursts that leave real scars. A botched heist introduces innocent blood on their hands, forcing you to grapple with whether Toby’s noble ends can ever justify Tanner’s reckless means, a moral tightrope Sheridan walks with unflinching precision. It’s this nuance that elevates the film: no one’s purely good or evil, just products of their environment, clawing for a scrap of dignity.

The film’s slow burn pays off in spades. Early jobs are clinical and methodical: masks on, small bills only from the tellers’ drawers, in-and-out in under two minutes to avoid dye packs or alarms, always hitting small branches mid-morning when staff is light. Tension simmers in the mundane details—laundering dirty cash at Native casinos amid blinking lights and cigarette smoke, dodging security cams with cheap disguises, or holing up in cheap motels with peeling wallpaper—building inexorably to a final showdown that’s as brutal as it is poetic. No heroes ride off into the sunset unscathed; justice twists unpredictably like the West Texas wind, leaving you questioning who’s really won in this rigged game. It’s balanced too—no glorifying crime without consequences. Toby’s noble intent constantly clashes with Tanner’s powder-keg recklessness, while Marcus’s dogged pursuit peels back layers of his own regrets about a life spent chasing ghosts. Everyone’s deeply flawed, chasing some form of redemption in a system that’s stacked against the little guy from the jump, and Sheridan lets those contradictions breathe without forcing resolutions.

Pacing does drag a tad in the middle, with those ranger stakeouts testing patience at times, but it masterfully mirrors the tedious grind of real low-level crime—the waiting, the watching, the endless coffee refills—making the climaxes land with twice the force. Character depth is rock-solid across the board, though side players like the waitress (Katy Mixon) or the casino manager get a bit short shrift in the script’s tight focus. Still, the core quartet carries the weight effortlessly, with Bridges delivering a masterclass in weathered charm—part crusty mentor, part comic relief, all heart. Even smaller beats, like a teller’s trembling hands or a deputy’s split-second choice, add texture without stealing focus.

Hell or High Water revives the Western genre for the 21st century—less six-guns and saloons, more economic gunslinging and ATM skimmers. At its core, it’s about family ties that bind even as they strangle, personal failures that haunt like ghosts on the plains, and faceless corporations devouring the heartland one foreclosure at a time. Toby’s final call to his ex-wife, hinting at a freer future for his boys on the now-clear-titled ranch, lands with bittersweet punch, his voice cracking just enough to sell the lie he tells himself. Marcus, surveying the bloodied aftermath from a ridge, mutters about Comanches losing their land centuries ago—a stark reminder that history’s cycles of loss and revenge remain unbroken, no matter who holds the deed. No tidy Hollywood bows, just hard-earned truth staring you down from the screen.

In a landscape clogged with summer blockbusters, this indie gem—backed by bold financiers—proves that small-scale stories pack the biggest emotional wallop. Watch it for the immersive vibes and regional flavor, from the twangy accents to the sun-bleached pickups; stay for the soul-stirring performances and themes that linger long after the credits. If you dug the Coens’ No Country for Old Men, this slots right in—tense as a taut wire, thoughtful without pontificating, unflinching in its gaze at America’s underbelly. Hell yeah, it’s absolutely worth your time.

Review: Sicario (dir. by Denis Villeneuve)

Posted on by Arleigh

“You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now.” — Alejandro

Sicario is one of those thrillers that doesn’t just try to get your pulse up; it wants to leave you sitting there afterward, uncomfortable and a little hollowed out. Set in the murky world of the U.S.–Mexico drug war, it follows an idealistic FBI agent pulled into a “by any means necessary” operation and slowly realizing she’s basically a pawn in a much bigger, much uglier game. It’s not a movie about slick heroes taking down bad guys so much as a slow, grim spiral into the realization that the system is rigged on every level, and that’s where the film is both at its most impressive and its most uncompromising. Overall, it leans heavily positive as a piece of craft—beautifully shot, superbly acted, tightly directed—and its refusal to blink at where its story logically leads is a big part of what gives it power.

The basic setup is simple enough: Kate Macer, played by Emily Blunt, is an FBI agent used to doing things by the book, raiding cartel safe houses in Arizona with her partner Reggie. After a grisly opening operation that turns up corpses hidden in the walls and a deadly booby trap, she’s recruited into a joint task force helmed by Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver, a flip‑flop‑wearing CIA type who treats international borders and legal constraints as suggestions. The team’s official mission is to go after a cartel lieutenant, Manuel Díaz, but very quickly Kate realizes she’s only being told a fraction of what’s really going on. The more she pushes for answers, the more obvious it becomes that Matt and his mysterious associate Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) are running their own agenda and using her badge and presence as cover.

From the start, Denis Villeneuve frames this story as a descent, and he does it by locking us into Kate’s perspective for most of the film. We’re as confused and kept in the dark as she is: we don’t fully know why the team is crossing into Juárez, why everyone is so tense at the border, or what the deeper objective is besides “disrupt the cartel.” That choice pays off in a huge way during the film’s standout sequences, whether it’s the convoy inching through traffic surrounded by armed federales or the nighttime tunnel infiltration lit by thermal and night‑vision photography. Those scenes aren’t just “cool action beats”; they’re engineered to make you feel boxed in and outmatched, like violence could erupt at any second and no one really has control. Even when nothing is technically happening, you can feel the nerves jangling under the surface.

One of the most striking things about Sicario is how it weaponizes space. The way the film uses its wide, open desert vistas isn’t just pretty scenery—it adds this creeping, suffocating dread to everything, as if the characters are tiny figures swallowed up by forces they can’t hope to understand or control. Those long shots of trucks threading their way across the landscape, or helicopters gliding over seemingly endless scrub, make the world feel vast, ancient, and totally indifferent to whoever’s spilling blood on it today. In those moments, the movie almost channels a kind of Lovecraftian horror, the same cosmic, indifferent menace that Cormac McCarthy managed to weave through his Westerns, where the land itself feels old, hostile, and utterly unmoved by human morality or suffering. It’s not supernatural, but that sense of something bigger, colder, and permanent presses down on every decision these characters make.

Roger Deakins’ cinematography is a huge part of why that dread lands so well. The desert is captured in these wide, ominous skyline shots with tiny vehicles creeping along the horizon, giving Sicario a sense of menace that feels baked into the environment. Even the daylight scenes feel threatening, all washed‑out heat and harsh sun flattening everything into a kind of moral no‑man’s‑land. Then the movie flips into night, and suddenly you’re plunged into infrared and silhouettes, which fits perfectly with the story’s obsession with secrecy and invisible lines being crossed. This is one of those films where you could watch with the sound off and still feel the tension just from how the images are composed, but the use of space and light also nudges the movie into that McCarthy‑adjacent territory where the West is less a backdrop and more a silent, malevolent presence.

The performances match that level of craft. Emily Blunt plays Kate as tough and competent, but not in a superhero way—she’s brave, but she’s also human, constantly trying to reconcile what she’s seeing with what she believes law enforcement is supposed to be. You can see the frustration mounting as she keeps demanding clarity and hitting a wall of smirks, deflections, and “you’ll understand later.” Benicio Del Toro, meanwhile, walks off with the film as Alejandro, this quiet, haunted figure who initially seems like just another operative but reveals layers of trauma and ruthlessness as the story goes on. The script is smart about keeping his backstory mostly hinted at until late in the film, which makes it all the more chilling when you finally see what he’s really there to do. Josh Brolin is the third pillar, playing Matt as casually flippant on the surface but utterly cold about collateral damage, the kind of guy who laughs through briefings because he already knows the moral lines are going to be erased.

On a thematic level, Sicario is very much about complicity and the idea that in this particular “war,” there are no clean hands. Kate comes in thinking she’s going to help nail cartel leadership through some kind of legal, targeted operation; what she slowly figures out is that the task force is really trying to destabilize one cartel to empower another, consolidating power into a more “manageable” single organization. That logic—“create one devil we can deal with instead of many we can’t”—is chilling, and the movie doesn’t really offer a comforting counterargument. Instead of pulling back or softening that stance, it commits to showing what that philosophy looks like in practice, all the way to the bitter end. By the time Alejandro reaches his personal endgame and we see what “justice” looks like in this world, any illusions about moral clarity are gone, and the film refuses to apologize for following that line through.

Where some films might hedge their bets or try to inject a last‑minute note of optimism, Sicario is deliberately straight‑backed about where its story logically leads. The CIA needs Kate’s FBI status to legitimize their operation on U.S. soil, but they don’t actually want her input; she’s there to sign off and be lied to, not to shape policy. Every time she pushes back—like when she tries to build a traditional case after the task force raids a cartel‑connected bank—she’s shut down because “that’s not what this mission is.” Even the brief subplot with the corrupt local cop Silvio is there to underline how the drug war trickles down: this isn’t just cartel bosses and shadowy agents, it’s working‑class people pulling double duty as mules because they’re desperate, and they end up as expendable as anyone else. Rather than treating that as background noise, the movie leans into the bleak implications and lets them sit with you.

The same goes for Kate’s arc. Some viewers see the film as sidelining its female lead in the third act, shifting the narrative fully over to Alejandro just when things are coming to a head. Structurally, that is what happens: the viewpoint tilts from Kate’s confused horror to Alejandro’s mission, and she becomes more of a witness than an active participant. But that shift feels of a piece with the movie’s overall approach—she has been outmaneuvered and used from the start, and Sicario isn’t interested in pretending otherwise just to deliver a more empowering or conventionally satisfying ending. There’s something bracing about the way the film sticks to its guns here; it says, “this is the world we’ve shown you for two hours, and this is how someone like Kate gets treated in it,” and then follows through.

All of this could have tipped into empty cynicism if the film didn’t feel so precise and purposeful. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score, all pounding, low‑end rumble and ominous strings, practically turns the highway scenes into horror set‑pieces; it feels like the sound of something massive grinding forward that you can’t stop. Villeneuve keeps the pacing deliberate but never sluggish, using long stretches of quiet to make the explosions of violence feel random and brutal instead of exciting. Even small scenes, like Kate’s attempted hookup with a local cop who turns out to be on the cartel payroll, are staged to underline how deeply compromised everything is. There’s no safe space, no “off the clock” moment where the larger conflict doesn’t intrude, and the movie doesn’t pretend there is just to make you feel better walking out.

If you go into Sicario looking for a clean, cathartic crime thriller where the good guys outsmart the bad guys, you’ll probably come away irritated or even angry. The movie’s whole point is that those categories don’t really apply in this corner of the world, and it’s committed enough to that idea that it never gives you an easy out. But if you’re up for something more sobering—an incredibly well‑crafted, morally grim look at the drug war with standout work from Blunt, Del Toro, Brolin, Deakins, and Villeneuve—it’s a pretty exceptional ride. Its worldview is harsh, but it’s also coherent and honestly pursued, and that level of conviction is a big part of why the film lingers. It may not be the kind of movie you “enjoy” in a traditional sense, but it’s one that sticks with you, and in this genre, that counts for a lot.