Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

murfnik For using native actors, I give it a 10 of 10. The production values are rather poor, but then again, they used a lot of local people for grips, etc. Many shots with the sound boom in them.This film was never distributed, so the editing was never really finished. Those shots with the boom could have been optically cropped. The sound very often picks up too much..for instance late in the film, in Leaphorn's house, the ticking of a clock near the mic almost drowned out the conversation.Chee is supposed to be somewhat quiet, slow to move, but Phillips might have taken that a bit far.Overall, it's fairly faithful to the book.

will lee Plenty of films of this vintage suffer from boom mikes in frame and the top and dolly tracks visible at the bottom: this is an artifact born of failed productions. When the camera operator composed the shot, he had been told the film was being made for theatrical release, in a 1:1.85 ratio and so when the boom dipped down slightly, but not enough to make it into the "letterbox" they let it slide. Then, after the film failed on the festival circuit or preview process, etc and was dumped to video no one cared to correct the errors - they were all just trying to dump the project on the market as quickly as possible. Had the final "release print" been made, instead of a video transfer from the camera original (mivees and all) we would have been spared the spectacle of seeing mister boom mike. Most of these types of film were being dumped onto the video market before consumers cared to see letterboxed releases, so the transfer was made full frame.

morrisb705 When I first saw The Dark Wind, I was impressed that local people were cast as extras and were speaking the Navajo Language. The subtitles were accurate.When I heard Chee speak Navajo, it was broken but he's not a native speaker. I was very impressed that he took the time to actually learn to speak the words.

harry-77 Any film that is overloaded with voice-over narration to explain the shortcomings of the script deserves a slap on the wrist. I had not read the novel from which this is supposedly taken, and only watched because I knew Lou Diamond Phillips when he was a student here in Dallas before he became famous... and it is obvious this was one of his very early films. He looks innocently sweet and precious but seems to be struggling beneath a script that is sorely lacking. Makes me, as a screenwriter, wonder how on earth any producer plonked down the dough to make this film in the first place....