'Wind River' Clips And Featurettes Tease A Strong Antidote To The Post-Summer Doldrums

August and September are often (and rightfully) viewed as studio dumping grounds, the place where films that don't fit the summer and awards season molds get tossed. But sometimes, this is the perfect time to release a smaller movie that could vanish between the cracks elsewhere in the year. It's even the ideal time to release a serious-minded thriller for adults that was a hit on the festival scene earlier in the year.

Enter Wind River, a mystery about an FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen) and an experienced tracker (Jeremy Renner) trying to solve a murder on Native American reservation. We dug the movie at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and the scorching heat of August feels like the right time to watch a movie set entirely in the ice and snow. If you want to know more, a bunch of clips and featurettes have arrived to herald the film's release today.

We've covered the various trailers for Wind River in the past, but if you want a little more, the five clips below will do the trick. The clips mostly consist of character moments and conversations, selling the characters, their dialogue, and their world.

Don't let the icy setting fool you – Wind River is directed by Taylor Sheridan, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind Sicario and Hell or High Water, both of which are set in the scorching heat of Texas and Mexico. In his review from Sundance, Ethan Anderton said that this movie doesn't quite match the intensity of those films, but it proves that Sheridan is a talent we should be watching:

Wind River has enough thrills and suspense to satisfy, even if it doesn't hold up to the quality of Taylor Sheridan's previous work as a screenwriter. At the very least, Sheridan shows great promise as a filmmaker with his directorial debut. And when the time comes for Sheridan to deliver another script that's as good as Sicario and Hell or High Water, I sincerely hope he gets a chance to direct it himself so we can see how he evolves behind the camera.

He saved his strongest praise for Renner, saying that Wind River features the actor's best performance to date:

Perhaps the most remarkable element of the film is Jeremy Renner. [...] What Renner does here, though, is subtle and strong. The victim at the center of Wind River happens to be the best friend of a teenage daughter that Renner's character lost years ago. However, rather than becoming some kind of Jack Reacher or Bryan Mills type, letting all his anger and emotions get the better of him as he sets out on this therapeutic revenge, he's cold and calculated, with only a brief glint of sadness reaching his eyes. Holding back that level of emotion, but still letting it resonate in small, finely tuned moments instead of just being aggressively angry and overwhelmed with emotion — that's what makes this Jeremy Renner's best performance yet.

Wind River is in limited release now and will expand to more theaters in the coming weeks. For a look at the making of the movie, you can peruse the four featurettes below.