Excluding what seems a false start (VILE/’11 - not seen here), current go-to Man of the West Taylor Sheridan made his directing debut, from his own script, on this Modern Western/Police Procedural. No one’s trying to reinvent the wheel on this one, which turns out to be a good thing, indeed, Sheridan’s shooting style so straightforward, you might have a moment’s confusion when he cuts directly into the film’s big ‘reveal’ flashback. Storytelling worked out more thru character, climate & landscape/less thru plot & action. (Who knew Budd Boetticher was doing posthumous mentoring?) Jeremy Renner is solid & reserved as the wildlife agent in & around Indian Territory Wyoming pulled from predator control to aid unseasoned FBI agent Elizabeth Olsen, unversed in the customs of the county as she tracks down the killer of an 18-yr-old Native American who froze to death running for her life in the snow-covered mountains. It’s a case with personal echoes for Renner along with tricky borders that cross Reservation, State, and Federal control. Good, clean investigation in a tough to handle setting; Olsen talented but unprepared to take charge. Yet what’s most interesting about Sheridan’s work isn’t what he does dramatically, but what he avoids. No romance bubbling up between the leads; no simmering tensions with Renner’s young son when he has to work on this murder (Renner separated from his Native American wife); no wildlife revenge from that unkilled mountain lion who could have ironically settled scores. A bit of forced melodrama that must have been particularly tempting to add in. Many more smart moves . . . or rather smart denials of easy payback & twists. Not that we don’t get a big, traditional shootout finale. A film that gets its drama, its emphases and its logistics right.
DOUBLE-BILL: Similar crime territory (literally territory, crossing in & out of Indian Reservation Lands) nicely handled in streaming series LONGMIRE (2012 - ‘17). Or is when the show sticks to cases and goes easy on interpersonal complications. (Graham Green in both, but in LONGMIRE he's a baddie.)
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