Those Who Wish Me Dead: A Smoldering Throwback Thriller
Those Who Wish Me Dead is the latest film from writer-turned-director Taylor Sheridan (who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Leavitt and Michael Koryta). With a stale throwback vibe, this Angelina Jolie fronted thriller relies too heavily on tired clichés and easily slumps into the lower echelon of Sheridan’s filmography, ultimately lacking the tension, emotions, and character of his previous films.
A smoke jumper and a traumatized boy fight for their lives as two relentless assassins pursue them through a raging fire in the Montana wilderness.
Based off the 2014 novel of the same name by Michael Koryta, Those Who Wish Me Dead begins promising enough. We are literally dropped into the story as the smoke-jumping Angelina Jolie plummets into the heart of a Montana wildfire. The adrenaline-fueled opening feels kinda like Backdraft meets Dante’s Inferno, and it could have headed in a number of equally promising directions. However, once the smoke clears away, the direction Sheridan and his co-authors choose nearly snuffs out all of its fiery potential. In the ensuing smolder, this thriller piles on the cliches as it cruises toward a climax that would only feel at home if we were still living in the 90s (or the 70s when disaster flicks like The Poseidon Adventure or Towering Inferno were the “it” thing).
It’s not as horrendous as Lee Hancock’s The Little Things though, which also felt like a relic exhumed out of some 90s time capsule, but it definitely feels lackluster when compared to Sheridan’s Sicario, Hell Or High Water, or Wind River. While it’s not without its moments of minor subversion, Those Who Wish Me Dead finds Sheridan almost entirely painting by numbers, which is a shame because he’s written some really excellent scripts whose lifeblood is playing off convention. But here, every character is essentially an archetype we’ve seen a million times over; e.g. the troubled and crazed protagonist looking for redemption, the man being hunted for uncovering a hidden secret, the boy caught in the crosshairs of danger, the hitmen who we recognize as the “bad guys” the moment we lay eyes on them, etc.
This is the kind of film where you get a shot of some bad guys walking away from a house unfazed, while you wait patiently for the house to explode just as they waltz out of frame. And it’s almost laughable when it finally happens, and the rest of its cat-and-mouse antics play just about the same. Angelia Jolie fits the mold for the part, and it’s nice to see her back in an action film, but her performance here doesn’t exactly resurrect the star-status she held back in the 90s and 2000s. Even though her star-power does the film some favors, it’s unable to hold everything up by its lonesome, and some of it is trampled on by the film’s silly narrative and lazy writing.
Aside from the clichés the film is built on, the most glaring aspect of the writing is the dialogue, particularly for the Finn Little’s character Connor. He’s supposed to be 12 years old, but yet he’s written almost as if he’s an adult. Some of the dialogue just feels awkward coming out of his mouth. There’s also a head-scratching scene with a Tyler Perry cameo, which raises more questions than it does connect dots. The major set pieces it builds itself around aren’t too exciting (there’s a lightning scene that’s laugh-out-loud silly), and evoke a cheesy 90s feel (think Con Air or The Rock) without the associated charms. Sheridan captures it all with steady, conventional hands though. There’s an Eastwood-style to his compositions and approach, but visually, there’s not too much of a WOW factor. The film’s biggest win is in its pregnant survivalist Allison (played fiercely by Medina Senghore), who steals the show in the film’s only truly exciting fire fight.
Those Who Wish Me Dead doesn’t reinvent the genre or even bend the rules, but it offers up some minor thrills and adult-oriented escapism. Even though it kinda winds down to underwhelming fizzle, it’s still solidly put together and contains a handful of action sequences that are nicely effective. As a straightforward thriller, it plays OK, but it’s still a step backward for Sheridan, who we all know is capable of much better.
Recommendation: If you’re bored and have two hours to kill, give this one a watch on HBO Max. Just know it’s a lesser Taylor Sheridan thriller.
Rating: 3 wild fires outta 5.
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