Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Taylor Sheridan, Warner Bros. Pictures.
This action thriller sees a former smokejumper-turned-tower-lookout-guard who must protect the life of a teenage murder witness on the run from killers during a serious forest fire.
Academy Award-winner Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted, The Bone Collector, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) plays the character of Hannah Faber, protecting a young boy Connor (Finn Little), who has witnessed the killing of his father. He goes on the run in the Montana wilderness to escape a pair of assassins (Nicholas Hoult and Aidan Gillen) hired to silence him.
Hannah is tough but wild, strong but vulnerable. She’s a daredevil firefighter who has a reputation for being crazy. It was during a fire that a calamitous failure of judgment resulted in the deaths of a couple of kids. It’s a vision that haunts her. She regards herself to be downgraded after being demoted to one of the fire towers, standing like a lonely outpost in the middle of the forest along the Continental Ridge. Her job is to monitor the weather and keep a lookout, but she wants to get back to the action even though she feels disconcerted by PTSD.
Jolie gives a stellar performance.
The film is based on a novel with the same name that was written by Michael Koryta, who also wrote the screenplay with Sheridan and Charles Leavitt.
Those Who Wish Me Dead is another first-rate addition to the well-received body of work from director Sheridan (Yellowstone, 12 Strong, Without Remorse).
Some action sequences, particularly those showing how fires actually start and run, are most effective. As we watch the pace at which those fires pick up speed and spread – and how quickly Hannah and Connor run for their lives – are a terrifying reminder of the Australian bushfires during 2019-20.
- Those Who Wish Me Dead is streaming on Netflix
