Wind River

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⭐6/10

I feel pretty conflicted about this one. I have watched a few Sheridan movies, namely Sicario and Hell or High Water, and loved them both, but also had this sense that those movies were teetering on being conservative propoganda. There is always some lip service to speaking meaningfully about big issues, and in those cases I felt they were enough. 

It wasn't enough in this one. In this movie, Jeremy Renner discoverers a dead body on an Indian reservation, and so the tough but naïve FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) comes and is supposed to solve the mystery. However, she needs the help of the seasoned, world-weary Renner to do it. 

I have a lot of thoughts on this one, but I'll try to limit them. It's a good movie. It looks okay (though not nearly good enough considering the landscapes they have to work with), it deals with some heavy themes, the action is exciting, the music is atmospheric though maybe a little overused, and yeah, it's a classic tale of good vs evil. My problem was that I had such a tough time with the messaging. I try not to get too worked up over this kind of stuff if it's not overly preachy or political, but I couldn't help but feel this strong sense of pre-Trump conservatism. Yes, yes, there are systemic issues on reservations, but at some point you need a white man to go over there and fix them! And you're naïve if you think otherwise! 

Definitely some white savior issues, definitely some issues writing women, definitely a lack of sensitivity around indigenous issues. And I don't even mean to criticize that in terms of a story disagreeing with my values, but I just mean it makes the story weaker. There's an attempt to write these characters with some depth, but they're all paper thin caricatures of your 90s action film archetypes. Jeremy Renner, the sad dad, the wounded warrior! 

Maybe I'm reading into it too much. Jess actually liked this movie more than me, so there's that, but I just had an icky feeling throughout. It's wildly similar to Sicario, complete with the a montage of entering enemy territory (aka just a place where people with brown skin live) and it made me like that movie less. Sicario is far more forgivable; I'm not sure I can come to terms with this one. 

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