Synopsis:

A wildlife officer, who is haunted by a tragedy that happened because of him, teams up with an FBI agent in solving a murder of a young woman on a Wyoming Native American reservation and hopes to get redemption from his past regrets.

Intentions:

Kept the laid-back pace of the main story intact, but trimmed some of the main character family life, and some of the flashbacks to focus on the core narrative without interruption. Some scenes are recut and rearranged for better impact. This film has a pretty laid-back pace and I didn't want to disturb that, but there's quite a bit of downtime from the main plot for the main character - Cory - to visit his family in an attempt to add further depth. While I understand the intention it took away from the flow of the story for me, so I stripped out many of the "family life" moments, leaving just enough to give you a feel for the relationships without overwhelming the plot. The second major goal was to tone down some of the "action" moments a bit, they come off as a bit overly dramatic and I felt they would carry more weight with a bit of a trim. Finally, there's a big segment of flashbacks in a really awkward spot in the film, so I took this and trimmed it down, repositioning the key elements in a spot I felt was more appropriate to keeping a smooth narrative flow. I think the only change that might be a bit contentious is removing the very first scene of the film, showing Natalie running through the snow. While I like this scene it was an intentional choice to remove it because it doesn't really fit well with the tighter narrative, and several of Cory's scenes convey what happened so in a rare instance I chose "tell" rather than "show", which may normally seem counterintuitive but in the context of a murder investigation it makes more sense.

Change List:

-cut "actual events" message at start -cut Natalie running, only keeping the title card part since it's visually interesting/intriguing, going straight into Cory's story -trimmed part of Cory on ranch with son -cut Cory at home with son -trimmed out Cory offering Martin wisdom about his own struggle -trimmed gunfight to be less dramatic -cut Cory visiting wife and Jane -cut all flashbacks to keep story in present -cut Cory checking on Jane after gunfight -trimmed forest run to be less dramatic +reinserted/intercut some of the flashbacks into the confession -retrimmed final run to be less overly dramatic -cut Cory visiting Jane in hospital, and Martin's wife -cut "moral of the story" message at end