Those Who Wish Me Dead

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Those Who Wish Me Dead follows Hannah, a smoke jumper who encounters a young teenager in the Montana wilderness fleeing from a pair of hit-men. Hannah's survival skills are put to the test as she aids the young boy in hiding from the assassins while an intense forest fire threatens to engulf them all. I really enjoyed how the film placed us with this small Montana woodland community, a very rural town that was primed for forest fires and trained for survival. Watching a main protagonist like Hannah struggle to cope with the trauma of a prior forest fire operation is a great setup for her second chance in saving young Connor. Watching the film heighten the action stakes of this film by watching the two assassins professionally take prisoners and murder targets and bystanders alike is very gripping. More than anything seeing this pair be overpowered by forces they can't anticipate or control is as great as it is when our heroes manage to overpower them (even if only for a moment). The score for the film aids to the tense atmosphere, with this nail-biting warble as the antagonists or the forest fire grow ever closer to destroying our protagonists.

 

Angelina Jolie, who played Hannah, presents a protagonist in the film who is very easy to connect with and feel for; the way Jolie shows her role dealing with personal demons while trying to overcome an intense survival scenario is gripping. Aidan Gillen, who played Jack, really gets you quite invested in the hit men aspect of the story; Gillen crafts an antagonist who feels very professional and deadly while also incredibly stressed and pushed to the limits by the standards of his job. Medina Senghore, who played Allison, really steals the show as this tough as nails pregnant survival expert who outwits the assassins at multiple turns; I loved watching Senghore and Bernthal onscreen together as this presented a very respectful and likeable husband and wife duo.

However, the best performance came from Jon Bernthal, who played Ethan. This character is the deputy sheriff of the rural Montana town and has a very charismatic, familiar relationship with those he protects. In particular, watching the tough love relationship Bernthal established with jolie early on was brilliant; he clearly respected this woman who was spiralling from guilt a lot but was also trying a firm hand to save her from reckless impulses. Seeing Ethan as this settled guy with a brilliant wife and a steady future laid out for himself who still manages to genuinely place the wellbeing of his town before himself makes this role the quiet hero of this film. Bernthal calmly following the orders of the assassins when he is captured in a procedural way grounds the film. Yet when he blows up and begins to verbally and physically assail the assassins after they push him too far you get to see the heroic figure Bernthal consistently has portrayed. Ethan truly feels like the quietly humble hero of his community who sacrifices all he has to keep them safe, a brilliant character arc that I loved watching.

The issue with Those Who Wish Me Dead is that the driving force behind the assassins and the reason the main kid is on the run is pretty vague and generic. The first act spends a lot of time packaging this story that the District Attorney and Connor's Dad have concocted a big case that would expose several undisclosed people in power. So now there are precisely two hit men going around offing anyone linked to the investigation. Yet the details around the investigation are never anything more than vague, and the organisation the hit men seem to work for is kept away at an arm's length. The film knows what situation it wants to get into but is reluctant to really analyse the motives behind why we get there. This unfortunately does have the result of the story not really feeling fully developed. Throughout the film we spend a lot of time with the hit men antagonists, the deputy sheriff, Connor and his Dad and actually very little time with Hannah and Connor on the run. So all te intensity of the killers hunting the young kid is bottlenecked into a very short window of time. Even the promise of a raging forest fire as a threat doesn't really have much impact barring a five to ten minute window. The end of the film reaches a conclusion that ticks off some boxes but can't fully be described as a satisfying conclusion due to the hasty end of some characters and leaving many plot threads unexplored or unanswered. The cinematography for the film was only working hard when establishing and helicopter/crane shots were involved; otherwise it was drab mid shot after drab mid shot. The editing for the film was remarkably slow paced as well, often lingering for far longer than was really necessary and stretching out sequences for all they were worth.

Finn Little, who played Connor, is a young performer who doesn't always feel genuine with the emotions he is portraying in multiple scenes; Little is a kid who can cry on cue and look sad but he never convinces me that he can genuinely portray grief. Nicholas Hoult, who played Patrick, is a strange moment of casting in my eyes; Hoult is a very adept performer but is delegated to little more than the henchman role with barely any lines in this feature. Jake Weber, who played Owen, should maybe have focused a little more on playing the father figure rather than the dead serious exposition delivery device; Weber's role is significant because of his bond with Little's Connor but this relationship doesn't feel very sincere in the film. Tyler Perry, who played Arthur, is this mysterious cloak and dagger boss of the films antagonists but has very little reason to actually show up. having someone like Perry in this big scene cameo felt like an indulgent moment the feature didn't need to take.

 

While an entertaining and fun premise, Those Who Wish Me Dead never does anything to make itself a truly memorable 2021 thriller. I would give Those Who Wish Me Dead a 6/10.