Outlaw King Impresses With Its Production Value But Underwhelms With Its Characters

The Hollywood epic was a common sight in the 1950's and 1960's as Hollywood tried to combat the rise of television programming with a horde of movies that used gargantuan budgets to bring to life massive-in-scale stories that usually took place in ancient periods of history. How funny then to consider that the newest Netflix original movie Outlaw King, which reunites director David Mackenzie with his Hell or High Water leading man Chris Pine, is an obvious homage to those types of movies, complete with a $120 million budget that makes it the most expensive Netflix movie yet (Martin Scorsese's The Irishman is waiting in the wings for its chance to turn to Outlaw King and say "Hold my beer!"), yet it'll be seen by the vast majority of people on...televisions!

Wind River Is A Snow-Ridden Search For Answers

What is Wind River? Well, it's an Indian Reservation, primarily populated by Native American individuals, that is located in Wyoming. It is here that Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) makes his living as he hunts predators for farmers who are concerned that said predators may be gobbling down their livestock. It's an occupation that makes him a decent chunk of change and allows him to live close to his son with whom he shares custody with his ex-wife. While on patrol for his job one day, Cory comes across the body of a deceased young woman in the snow. An FBI agent, Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), is called in to help with the investigation into this mysterious death, as suspicions soon arise that this lady could have been murdered.

There's Plenty Of Excitement To Be Had In Hell Or High Water

It's always nice to see movies that actually understand Texas and don't treat it like some idyllic postcard that's an ode to "the good o'l days". Instead, Texas as depicted in Hell Or High Water is very much true to life, full of people struggling to make the ways of farming work in the modern day world (one dude who's trying to wrangle his cattle during his thunderstorm jokes about how he wonders why his kids don't wanna do this job), red Coke cups in every diner and those smaller towns that aren't just an anomaly in America but even in Texas itself which is, in 2016, dominated by bustling metroplexes.