‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ Review
Sometimes it’s nice to have a good throwback. A simple, entertaining thrill-ride that reminds us of a time when movies didn’t need to rely on major IP. Those Who Wish Me Dead appears to be going for this type of experience with its potboiler premise, A-list star, and dedication to intense set pieces. It’s a John Grisham conspiracy thriller wrapped in an environmental disaster film from the 90s, so there’s potential here for a fun two-hour distraction.
The problem with Those Who Wish Me Dead is that it half-asses many of the tropes we come to expect from a movie of this genre. The film feels self-conscious about its formulaic story, quickly tossing characters and plot points at the audience and then shuffling out the door without making eye contact. As a result, the film leaves zero impact, and you walk away feeling empty about the whole experience. There’s nothing wrong with having a stock protagonist with a tragic backstory or a MacGuffin in the form of a precocious child, but you need to own it!
This fear of embracing archetypes sticks out the most when it comes to Hannah (Angelina Jolie), a smokejumper who made a bad call one fateful day and witnessed a few horrific CG fire deaths. She spends her days sitting by her lonesome in a lookout tower, experiencing flashes of that horrible event, and sometimes, to take the edge off, she performs reckless daredevil stunts like parachuting out of the back of a moving vehicle. Whoa! She doesn’t care if she lives or dies! All she needs is a scared, hunted young boy to cross her path, and she’ll finally learn that life’s worth living and it’s okay to forgive yourself.
Hannah is a character archetype you’ve seen countless times, but it’s not the familiarity that bothers me. First off, Jolie is wrong for the part. When you see this pristine, sunlit model cracking jokes with a group of burly, bearded dudes who look like they’re straight out of Sons of Anarchy, you can’t help but laugh. Jolie is no stranger to action roles, but her otherworldly beauty works better in campier films like Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Salt.
But it’s not entirely Jolie’s fault that Hannah doesn’t work as a character; the tragic backstory is all she has going for her. The only hint of a personality trait is slightly sarcastic, and her skill as a smokejumper doesn’t even play a role in the story. She just knows how to run away from a fire. You could honestly cut her out of the film, replace her with Jon Bernthal’s character, and you’d have essentially the same story.
Speaking of which, a young boy, Connor (Finn Little, who you’ll be shocked to learn is not Noah Jupe from A Quiet Place), is on the run after a pair of assassins (Aidan Gillen and Nicolas Hoult) murder his father for knowing too much. Before biting the dust, his dad gave him crucial information about the assassins’ mob boss employer that he must take to the press. The world needs to know the truth! Knowing the boy is on the run, the hired guns start a forest fire to distract the police while they “quietly” carry on with their murdering business. Hannah and Connor bump into each other in the midst of this chaos and bond over their mutual grief as they outrun both the gunmen and the fire.
You'd expect something in the same vein as Cliffhanger with a premise this fun and over the top. Those Who Wish Me Dead should contain an abundance of exciting set pieces, quippy character interactions, and melodramatic death scenes, but it doesn’t go far enough with its spectacle. Weightless CGI and a small cast of paper-thin characters hold the film back from reaching its true potential as a turn-your-brain-off popcorn thriller.
Aside from our two central protagonists and villainous duo, we have deputy sheriff Ethan (Jon Bernthal) and his pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghore) caught up in the mix. He’s forced at gunpoint to act as a tour guide for the assassins while she disappears into fringes, putting her second-trimester ninja training to good use as she waits for the perfect opportunity to strike. And that’s it—six characters in this extravagant story about Blackwateresque assassins and a wildfire. I understand the intent to make Hannah and Connor feel isolated and alone as the threats close in around them, but the meager cast makes the story feel slight and skeletal.
The film should have injected its side characters into the plot. Hannah’s smokejumper friends show up at the start of the movie to crack generic macho dialogue and at the very end to remind us they exist. Put them in the story! They weren’t particularly well-written or likable, but I could have used more bodies in this already excessive film. Show us their struggle fighting the fire and have them intersect with the main characters as they run from the bad guys. We could’ve gotten so many cool deaths and intense fight scenes. Maybe a heroic sacrifice here, a knock-down, drag-out brawl there. Instead, the majority of the action revolves around people ducking gunfire, which gets old fast.
The characters themselves are barely worth noting. Ethan is a generic tough guy with a good heart that Jon Bernthal can play in his sleep at this point. Allison has the potential to be a cool character, but the film leans too much into her pregnancy for cheap suspense.
The only person in this film with a pulse is Jack, a reluctant hitman with a particular set of skills. It’s an archetype you’ve seen before, but Aidan Gillen brings personality and weight to the role. The scenes between him and his partner/brother Nicolas Hoult are some of the more engaging in the film as they weigh the consequences of their actions and lament their lack of support in this assignment. While their incompetent decision-making undercuts their credibility as a legitimate threat, they still provide a deadly presence when they’re on screen.
In the end, there’s nothing worth getting angry about in Those Who Wish Me Dead. The film may waste Taylor Sheridan's talents as a director, but it doesn’t insult your intelligence or infuriate you with stupid characters. It just could have done so much more to stand out as a fun, thrilling adventure. Instead, it is a painfully average TV movie that’s too insecure to leave an impression.
★★½