7.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
An FBI agent teams with the town's veteran game tracker to investigate a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation.
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Gil Birmingham, Kelsey Asbille, Teo BrionesThriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
One of the most eye opening things I ever experienced as a kid was when my father took me to the Four Corners area, where Utah (where I grew up), Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico join in the only such “cross like” confluence of a quartet of state boundaries. It’s a somewhat barren region, though also remarkably scenic in its own almost atavistic way, but what raised my little boy eyebrows was the manifest poverty I saw a number of Native Americans living in throughout the region (the Navajo Nation actually manages the Four Corners Monument). I grew up in the era when most kids’ knowledge of “Indians” (as they were regularly called then) came from movie and television westerns, and where even when they were the “bad guys” (which they typically were), they were often adorned in feathered regalia and seemed muscular and well fed. To see an elderly Native American man wrapped in a scraggly blanket, gaunt, malnourished looking and barely conscious due to what I assume must have been heavy alcohol use, was in its own peculiar way a very formative image for me. According to the closing credits, Wind River was filmed in Utah (though it supposedly takes place in Wyoming), and while it’s purportedly about a murder investigation which brings a Fish and Wildlife worker named Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) and an FBI agent named Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) together in an unlikely alliance to solve the case, there’s a lingering subtext of socioeconomic misery which runs through this film and which perhaps unavoidably reminded me of my childhood event. The Native Americans in this film are resolutely proud, but they’re also almost inherently defeated in a very real way, feeling themselves trapped not just by the “situation” of their ethnicity, but also due to the very geography in which they live.
Wind River is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Shot with Arri Alexa cameras and finished at a 2K DI, Wind River is rather surprisingly detailed throughout its many snowbound scenes, where at least close-ups offer some nicely complex looks at crystals and other frozen landscapes. There's a certain monotony to the palette in some of these scenes, but contrast is routinely excellent, helping to delineate between even quite slight variances in white tones. Some of the indoor material is a bit dreary looking, with less than optimal shadow detail, but even here close-ups can reveal very good to excellent levels of fine detail. Some of the wider vistas are extremely scenic and consistently offer excellent depth of field.
Wind River features a nicely detailed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Surround activity is consistent courtesy of the constant outdoor material, where everything from panning sounds of snowmobiles trekking across frozen wastelands to the sharp report of rifle fire helps to keep sonic energy interesting. Even smaller scale dialogue scenes have nicely placed ambient environmental noises and good directionality. Fidelity is fine, and courtesy of at least one major (if somewhat ludicrous) gun showdown, dynamic range is also very wide.
Sheridan ends this film with a couple of text overlays documenting how virtually every demographic group imaginable has a database keeping track of missing persons — with the exception of Native American women. That's certainly a salient piece of information, but it seems almost tangential to a much wider story of (emotional and physical) displacement and sadness that permeates this film. Wind River isn't especially "easy" to sit through, and it contains at least one glaring bit of hyperbole late in its going that defies logic, but it's another extremely compelling piece from Taylor Sheridan. Technical merits are strong, and Wind River comes Highly recommended.
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