Wind River
Movie, 2017, Named by the writer, Set in Third in the trilogy
Wind River is #48 of 48 in release order and #15 of 48 in chronological order in the Spiritual Trilogies.
The story
An FBI agent teams with the town's veteran game tracker to investigate a murder that occurred on a Native American reservation.
Wind River recap
Cory Lambert, a US Fish and Wildlife tracker on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, finds the frozen body of Natalie Hanson, an eighteen-year-old Arapaho woman, barefoot in the snow miles from any house. FBI agent Jane Banner, young and from Las Vegas, arrives alone. The autopsy shows Natalie was raped and died when the freezing air burst her lungs, so it cannot be classed as a homicide and Jane gets no backup. Cory tells her his own daughter Emily died the same way, a case never solved. Natalie's brother leads them to her boyfriend Matt, a security guard at a drilling site, and they find his body in the snow. Jane, the tribal police chief and officers go to the drilling site and face off with the guards. A flashback shows what happened: guards attacked Matt and Natalie in Matt's trailer, beat him to death, and a guard named Pete raped her before she ran. It ends Taylor Sheridan's Frontier Trilogy, and he directed it himself.
Wind River ending explained
Cory kills the guards and leaves Pete to die in the cold the way Natalie did. A gunfight breaks out at the trailer; the tribal officers die and Jane is wounded. Cory shoots the guards from a ridge and catches Pete. On a mountain, Pete confesses, and Cory makes him run barefoot through the snow; his lungs fail. Cory visits Jane in hospital, then sits with Natalie's father in grief. A title card says no statistics exist for missing Native American women.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Where to watch Wind River
Wind River is streaming on Netflix in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 7.7/10, Rotten Tomatoes 87%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Hell or High Water, the latest.
- Chronological order: after Hell or High Water, before Klute.
Cast
- Jeremy Renner as Cory Lambert
- Elizabeth Olsen as Jane Banner
- Gil Birmingham as Martin Hanson
- Graham Greene as Ben
- Jon Bernthal as Matt Rayburn
- Kelsey Asbille as Natalie Hanson
- Teo Briones as Casey Lambert
- Tantoo Cardinal as Alice Crowheart
- Matthew Del Negro as Dillon
- Hugh Dillon as Curtis
- Julia Jones as Wilma Lambert
- James Jordan as Pete Mickens
Directed by Taylor Sheridan.