‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ Review
R: Strong violence and language throughout
Runtime: 1 Hr and 59 Minutes
Production Companies: New Line Cinema, Bron Studios, Film Rites, Creative Wealth Media
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Writers: Michael Koryta, Charles Leavitt, Taylor Sheridan
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Hoult, Finn Little, Aidan Gillen, Medina Senghore, Tyler Perry, Jake Weber, Jon Bernthal
Release Date: May 14, 2021
IN THEATERS & HBO MAX
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.
If you’ve seen one Taylor Sheridan movie, you know what to expect from the others: a slow-burn, ruthlessly violent type of chaos that’s genuinely intense, set in the modern American West. If you’re going into this expecting an Angelina Jolie thriller, believe me, that’s not what you’re gonna get. You’re getting a Taylor Sheridan movie. He’s become that guy you call when you need a neo-western thriller made. Whether he was directing or screenwriting, Sheridan ruled the 2010s with films such as Sicario, Wind River, and Hell or High Water, which was one of the best westerns of the 21st century. After creating Yellowstone, the single original show that gave Paramount Network some leverage, he’s releasing his sophomore feature Those Who Wish Me Dead based on the book of the same name by Michael Koryta.
Sheridan does a fantastic job elaborating his protagonists by showcasing them as regular folk who inhabit this town they call home. You have a no-nonsense sheriff (a great Jon Bernthal who deserves to be an action star), his pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghor), his young nephew Connor (Finn Little), and a ex-smokejumper haunted by her past (Angelina Jolie) who must survive the day while being hunted by the assassins known as the Blackwell brothers (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult). While I had issues with its slow-burn pacing at first, you get to a point where you genuinely care about these simple small-town Montana folk, especially when juxtaposed with the cruel actions of the assassins.
Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult steal the show as the Blackwell Brothers, two high-class assassins who are cold as ice and stealthy as hell. Aidan Gillen is an absolute stone-cold mother fucker enacting violent chaos in a direct and terrifying manner. The pair elevates the tension whenever they’re onscreen by the very first cold (pun intended) opening where they blow up a friggin’ house. Aidan Gillen found his niche playing despicable, slimy villains and you just love to hate him.
Much like Hell or High Water, this film has a set of characters in a small community who get involved with a sinister plot involving killer criminals. Oh, and there are blazing wildfires as well. While the other films in Sheridan’s repertoire had personality and elevated thrills, Those Who Wish Me Dead is just subpar. It has his slow-burn direction and flair but the writing is so bland that it fails to make a valuable impression. Apart from the Montana protags all knowing each other and living quietly on ranches or isolated in a tower, there’s not that much depth or development to them. You get some flashbacks to Hannah’s past during a smokejumping mission gone wrong and how she’s now suffering from PTSD, but once again, only a small part of the movie focuses on her. Instead, most of it is centered on Sheriff Ethan and his pregnant wife Allison. The narrative itself takes place in the short span of 30-48 hours. Not to say I wasn’t at the edge of my seat to see if the cop and his wife were gonna be alright which sets the stakes pretty high for the both of them, but if you're selling an Angelina Jolie thriller movie, you gotta deliver on that. But that’s just me complaining about the marketing more so than the final product itself.
I haven’t watched many ‘90s westerns in my lifetime, yet I can’t help but think that this is the kind of contemporary western that would’ve been so cool several decades ago. Back in the day, studios were heavy on short thrillers about regular people being put to the test and you’re enthralled because they’re normal people. This film is from the dude who burst onto the cinema scene writing thrillers that stood out amongst the crowd when westerns were hardly being made unless they were remakes of old westerns. I’m not saying I expect better from Taylor Sheridan but with TWWMD and Without Remorse (which he was a co-screenwriter on) being so bland and lacking anything impressionable, it’s disappointing to see someone who is bringing neo-westerns to the forefront take a nosedive. Though it was enticing due to the frightening protagonists and Gillen’s terrifying performance, it wasn’t enough to warrant a solid recommendation.
Those Who Wish Me Dead works best as a nostalgia ride for older audiences who miss the olden days of westerns where the stakes were high and the characters were just everyday people with mundane things going on in their lives. For modern audiences, it’s meh. It’s more fun to experience at home on HBO Max rather than a theater because you’d definitely walk out disappointed as hell… or, if you’re like my dad, you’ll be snoring by the 40-minute mark when things finally get rolling.
