So far in his filmmaking career, Taylor Sheridan has demonstrated that he knows how to do gripping survival situations. His action sequences always feel risky and down to the wire, like one wrong move could end the scene as quickly as it began. Those Who Wish Me Dead should be grand slam for someone like him: a film that leaves behind the fraught portrayals of sexual assault and poverty on a Native reservation in his directorial debut Wind River, but keeps the suspenseful action and sense of overarching danger nature can pose if you’re not careful.
The film opens on a crew of firefighters leaping out of a plane over a raging fire below, their descent towards danger only punctuated when they pull their chutes. Sky-diving scenes, when done well, are always a thrill in movies, and though this spectacle is quickly discarded it sets the tone for what’s to come. We soon come to realize that this was an operation was led by Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie), a forest firefighter assigned to a watchtower in the Montana wilderness. She had taken charge of the mission, and a simple misreading of the wind led to the death of a fellow smokejumper and three young boys.
This guilt from this tragedy underscores Jolie’s performance as a tough yet sensitive loner, and gives the impetus for her decision to help tweenaged Connor Casserly (Finn Little) when he stumbles out of the wood. He and his father (Jake Weber) are forced onto the lamb when the latter stumbles upon a wide-reaching conspiracy and realizes a pair of assassins (Aidan Gillen & Nicholas Hoult) are hell-bent on silencing them. They decide to make their way from Florida up to the Great Plains to shelter with the father’s brother-in-law and his wife (Jon Bernthal & Medina Senghore), a pair of plucky survivalists.
Little does great with the role’s he’s given, conveying a naïve innocence of the wider world that’s quickly dashed when the plot catches up to him. However, his character’s relationship with Jolie’s can sometimes feel rushed, despite the genuine sadness and relief they share. It’s one of a few areas where Those Who Wish Me Dead might’ve benefited from a subtler approach—take the introduction of the assassin duo Jack and Patrick Blackwell.
In their introduction we see them entering and later exiting a family’s home under the guise of safety inspectors, though something’s clearly off. Jack asks Patrick about traffic on the way to Jacksonville as they walk across the street to their car—then he points out a bloodstain his younger brother’s shirt. It’s a clear, unsettling way of revealing their profession, though the moment is partially undone by the sudden explosion of the home as they drive away. It rips through the sense dread that had been building earlier, and could’ve better underscored the fear that grips Connor’s father when he sees the tragedy on the news.
Nevertheless, Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult are both amazing as cold and cruel killers, but they aren’t here to be sinister. You get the sense that for them this a job, perhaps with some more unsavory aspects than other lines of work, but a job nonetheless. Like all jobs, they have routines they adhere to, things they tell themselves to get through the day, and most especially, they have good days and bad days. And let me tell you, the actors sell you on the fact that they are having a very bad day.
Jon Bernthal carries the coolness and sternness you’d expect from a performance of his, though his role his surprisingly limited here. In fact, he and Jolie, despite this movie being a vehicle for the latter, are pretty much upstaged by Medina Senghore as Allison, the pregnant wife of Bernthal’s character who proves to be quite resourceful in a pinch. I won’t spoil what she gets up to, but I will say that audiences are in for a treat with her performance here, and hopefully many more to come after this.
The presence that looms largest in Those Who Wish Me Dead however, is the forest fire that encroaches on all of the characters, encircling them and moving closer and closer. It’s powerful and unyielding, a true force to be reckoned with. Through the visual weight it gives the blaze, this movie cements itself alongside an increasing number of wildfires in America and around the world, and it understands that the circumstances creating them are manmade. The script choses not to focus on the conspiracy that the hitmen are hired to keep buried, but what it makes clear is the entity behind it doesn’t care if a few acres burn.
It’s ironic that by making a film that tries to be more distanced from contemporary problems compared to his last, Sheridan’s work here feels more in step than ever. And it certainly helps that there’s a heaping of heart-pounding excitement to go with it, filled with actors that make the story feel lived in beyond the screen. Those Who Wish Me Dead is mostly well written, mostly well directed, and an all around satisfying thriller—though I wonder whether it’s good or a bad if I’m left wanting more of the aspects it devotes less time to.
3.5/5 STARS