WIND RIVER (US/UK/France - 2017) Written and directed by Taylor Sheridan. Cast: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Jon Bernthal, Gil Birmingham, Julia Jones, Kelsey Asbille, James Jordan, Hugh Dillon, Martin Sensmeier, Teo Briones, Tantoo Cardinal, Apesanahkwat, Eric Lange, Tokala Clifford, Ian Bohen. (R, 108 mins) After scripting 2015's acclaimed SICARIO and scoring an Oscar nomination for writing the next year's HELL OR HIGH WATER, actor-turned-screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (SONS OF ANARCHY) scores a trifecta with WIND RIVER, which he also directed. Sheridan spent much of this year's Sundance Film Festival calling WIND RIVER his "directorial debut," and well, it's not. He directed a tardy torture porn horror film called VILE in 2012 and has been going to great and borderline absurd lengths to distance himself from it and wish it away. As SICARIO began getting accolades a couple of years ago, VILE suddenly vanished from Sheridan's IMDb page, with it then becoming the sole entry on the IMDb page of a "Taylor Sheridan (IV)" as if another Taylor Sheridan directed it. VILE is a terrible film--the worst torture porn horror flick ever, honestly--but as I pointed out in my reviews of SICARIO and HELL OR HIGH WATER and as Film School Rejects' Joshua Coonrod detailed in his Sundance article "Why Is Taylor Sheridan Pretending Wind River Is His Directorial Debut?" Sheridan's selective memory and his rewriting of history to keep this zombie lie alive are deceptive and blatantly dishonest. Everyone has to start somewhere and pay their dues, and sure, maybe VILE was just a job to get his feet wet, but if James Cameron can own up to PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, Matthew McConaughey to TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION, and George Clooney to RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOES, Taylor Sheridan can admit he made VILE. To ignore VILE, no matter how wretchedly unwatchable it is, is insulting to the cast and crew who haven't achieved Sheridan's level of success in the years since--many of them are probably still waiting tables and working retail jobs between auditions if they haven't given up on acting altogether (an exception being Ian Bohen, a VILE co-star who has a small role here)--and it paints him as some kind of instant wunderkind that he's not. There's very few instances of a Quentin Tarantino coming out of nowhere with one game-changing classic after another. In short, WIND RIVER is a terrific film, Sheridan shows great promise behind the camera going forward and has every right to be proud of it. But no matter how many critics are unaware of VILE and write glowing reviews calling WIND RIVER his directorial debut because that's what they've been told, it's not and Sheridan needs to cut the shit. I mean, look at Pantera. They tried to make Metal Magic go away and did that work? No.
Set in the snowy environs of Wyoming's Wind River Indian Reservation, WIND RIVER opens with Fish & Wildlife agent and experienced hunter/tracker Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) searching for a den of mountain lions and happening upon a corpse frozen in the snow. The dead girl is 18-year-old Natalie (Kelsey Asbille), the best friend of Lambert's daughter Emily, who died three years earlier. Since the body was found on federal land, police chief Ben (Graham Greene) is required to notify the FBI, who sends rookie agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to determine if an investigation is necessary. Though the body shows a laceration on the forehead and obvious signs of sexual trauma, the medical examiner concludes that Natalie died from exposure and her lungs exploding in a pulmonary hemorrhage after running barefoot several miles in the subzero cold. He can't call it a homicide. With only six deputies covering thousands of miles of the reservation, Banner is determined to get to the bottom of why Natalie was running in the middle of snow-covered nowhere with no shoes or protective clothing and she asks Lambert to assist with his expert experience in tracking and the lay of the land. Lambert is well-regarded by the residents of the reservation, as his ex-wife (Julia Jones) is the daughter of tribal elders (Apesanahkwat, Tantoo Cardinal) and he knows the land as well as any Native American.
As a point A-to-point B exercise in storytelling, WIND RIVER is a fairly formulaic procedural, with two very different investigators teaming up and learning things that show them a different perspective. Lambert is still consumed by grief and it all comes back when his daughter's friend is killed and he has to console her devastated father (Gil Birmingham, who was so great as the object of Jeff Bridges' ballbusting in HELL OR HIGH WATER), while Vegas-stationed Banner tries to handle things in the blunt, big-city way she's been trained and quickly admits she's in over her head and needs to take a different approach. Sheridan really takes the time to explore the culture of the reservation and the way their youth have turned to crime and drugs, with the parents wondering where they went wrong. Like his earlier screenplays, WIND RIVER is very character-driven and Sheridan obviously studied the tricks of SICARIO director Denis Villeneuve and HELL OR HIGH WATER director David Mackenzie, with one heart-stopping standoff between the investigators, some deputies, and some oil drilling contractors in the area, a grim flashback sequence detailing the events leading to Natalie's death, and not one, but two vehicle caravan sequences straight out of SICARIO. And it's all propelled by a wonderfully haunting score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, so you know things are gonna be downbeat and bleak. Renner and Olsen have rarely been better and the supporting cast, particularly Birmingham and Greene, with Ben's cynical humor generating much tension-easing laughter, makes WIND RIVER an accomplished ensemble piece. It's got a couple of overly melodramatic monologues for Renner, but it's a welcome bit of grown-up, end-of-summer counter-programming at the multiplex, and it further establishes Sheridan as one of Hollywood's top screenwriters. Now just admit you made VILE and everything will be cool.
Sheridan (center) with his WIND RIVER stars
at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival
Sheridan (in gray t-shirt) on the set of VILE. Directing.
HELL OR HIGH WATER (US - 2016) Directed by David Mackenzie. Written by Taylor Sheridan. Cast: Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Gil Birmingham, Marin Ireland, Katy Mixon, Dale Dickey, Kevin Rankin, John-Paul Howard, Margaret Bowman, Taylor Sheridan. (R, 102 mins) A strong, character-driven thriller that emerged as a summer sleeper after being rolled out the old-fashioned way--limited release over a few weeks and expanding nationally with strong word-of-mouth--HELL OR HIGH WATER is a timely drama about family, duty, poverty, and getting revenge on the system. It does get a little ham-fisted on occasion, with characters required to give a florid speech every now and again as they look at a bank and vent their anger at everything it represents, but director David Mackenzie (YOUNG ADAM, MISTER FOE) and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (SICARIO) excel at creating very real people that the audience comes to know thoroughly over the course of the film. Unemployed gas driller Toby Howard (Chris Pine) and his bank-robbing, ex-con older brother Tanner (Ben Foster) are hitting the small-town branches of the regional Texas Midlands Bank, usually before open as an employee arrives and never taking packs of money, only the loose bills in the tills. They get away, bury the car, and move on to the next town. Meanwhile, wily old Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is looking at forced retirement but wants to nail the robbers first ("I may have one hunt left in me"), following their criminal path with his Mexican/Native American partner Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). As they make their way across the state toward Oklahoma, the Howard brothers are almost undone by Tanner's impulsive behavior that includes a reckless, spur-of-the-moment robbery while Toby is picking up the check at a diner across the street. Hamilton is stymied in his pursuit by behind-the-times Texas Midlands, with two of the targeted branches not having an electronic surveillance system, instead relying on a VHS recorder that's not even working. The robberies are masterminded by Toby, with Tanner tagging along because he's experienced. Their mother recently passed away and Texas Midlands was threatening foreclosure even as she quickly withered away from terminal cancer. Toby's ultimate plan for the stolen cash is an inventive one, and he does it with the best intentions--to provide his two sons with his bitter ex-wife Debbie (Marin Ireland) the kind of life he and Tanner never had. He's breaking the law to break the cycle of poverty that, as is the case with so many others in these desolate nether regions of rural America, has been passed on from generation to generation.
HELL OR HIGH WATER recognizes the noble reasoning behind Toby's actions but never makes him or Tanner heroes, even though the locals questioned by Hamilton and Parker are all too happy to see Texas Midlands get screwed. The only clear villains of the piece are those in the financial sector, who are treated with scorn and condescension by everyone, even Hamilton, who arrives at one crime scene, sees a well-dressed manager and gruffly intones "Well, let's talk to this guy here, he looks like someone who can foreclose on a home." Pine and Foster are excellent as the sibling bank robbers, and even a trigger-happy loose cannon like Tanner is humanized to some degree and not played as a stock psycho by Foster. But HELL OR HIGH WATER's biggest joys are provided by the national treasure that is Jeff Bridges. It's another Oscar-caliber performance, on the same level of burned-out melancholy as Tommy Lee Jones' Ed Tom Bell in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN but given a more gregarious manner in his rapport with Parker. Indeed, the testy ballbusting between Hamilton and Parker is hands-down the bromance of the year, so much so that you could easily watch an entire movie of Bridges and Birmingham in character, just sitting around dogging on each other. Whether it's Parker getting on Hamilton about his age ("You gonna do somethin' or just relax and let Alzheimer's run its course?") or Hamilton's constant razzing about Parker's dual ethnicities ("I haven't even gotten to my Mexican insults yet. I'm still on the Indian ones."), these two have an unspoken respect and dedication to one another ("You're gonna miss me pickin' on you," Hamilton tells Parker), an ironclad bond that makes events that transpire utterly heartbreaking.
Like other recent indie films that have addressed foreclosure and those doomed to struggle in a vicious cycle of being screwed and marginalized by the system (SUNLIGHT JR and 99 HOMES come to mind), HELL OR HIGH WATER is filmed in areas that have been hit hard, augmented by a downbeat score courtesy of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. Abandoned houses and boarded-up businesses line the streets. Old-timers are embittered, beaten-down, and done giving a shit (the "What don't ya want?" T-Bone waitress played by Margaret Bowman is a real crowd-pleaser) and young people just cruise around looking for fights (watch Toby handle the two meatheads blasting aggro-metal and waving a gun at Tanner at a gas station). Sheridan was best known as the ill-fated Deputy Hale on SONS OF ANARCHY before he switched careers to screenwriting with SICARIO. In between, he directed VILE, one of the worst horror films ever made, and one that was mentioned a lot on his Facebook page but mysteriously vanished from his IMDb profile and reappeared as the sole credit on another as soon as SICARIO started getting some positive buzz (c'mon, man--if James Cameron can own up to PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING, you can admit to VILE). His hapless attempts at scrubbing his past aside, Sheridan has proven himself adept at creating believable, fully-rounded characters but it sometimes comes off as a little too scripted and "messagey." It's not enough to be a huge issue, but some more subtlety would've been a good thing in these fleeting moments. In the end, HELL OR HIGH WATER is one of 2016's best, a film that doesn't let anyone off the hook, one filled with nail-biting tension when it counts most and genuine, devastating emotion when you least expect it.
