Those Who Wish Me Dead may be, thematically, a lesser work in the impressive canon writer/director Taylor Sheridan has been building over the last few years, but it’s no less entertaining for that. In fact, it might be more so.
As with previous Sheridan films, we have a tale of violence and bad men told against the stunning backdrop of one of the last remaining wild places in the American west — the mountains of Montana. Big Sky land, though beautiful, holds nearly as many terrors for the citizens as the two hitmen (Game of Thrones’ Aidan Gillen and X-Men’s Nicholas Hoult) who roll into the region one clear, blue day in search of a man and his son.
Nothing bogs down a thriller like explanations, so Sheridan keeps the details streamlined. A forensic accountant has the goods on some dirty-dealing government elites. When his superior dies in a convenient gas explosion, he packs up his 12-year old son and high tails it out of the city where he figures he’s an easy target. Turns out, he’s a pretty easy target in the country also. Soon enough, the boy is an orphan, miles from civilization and desperate for help from someone he can trust. Fortunately, even a vast, empty forest requires a few people to keep an eye on it, like Hannah (Angelina Jolie), who’s a specially trained firefighter known as a smokejumper
Sheridan, who also gave us Sicario and Wind River seems to gravitate to stories of strong women surrounded by men in dangerous jobs. That’s a common conceit these days, and audiences have seen Jolie kickbox men twice her size too many times to count. Sheridan, however, respects the audience’s intelligence enough not to pretend a woman, much less one as slight and fragile-looking as Jolie, is a physical match for a man. She may play like she’s just one of the toxic guys, matching them dangerous stunt for dangerous stunt, inappropriate joke for inappropriate joke. But when the chips are down, her only hope for survival if a man wants her dead is a weapon in her hand.
At times, Jolie takes her tough girl act too far — even the most world weary first responder wouldn’t read a father’s note about assassins tracking his son without batting an eye or asking a question. But Sheridan restrains her scowlier moments and tempers them with a natural maternal softness. The result is one of Jolie’s best performances in years.
Unlike other Sheridan films, Those Who Wish Me Dead (rated R for language and violence) is based on a novel by another writer, so it doesn’t explore class conflict or bureaucratic ineptitude the way his past projects have. This is pure adrenaline, baby. Albeit smart adrenaline. Yet for all that the story focuses on taking the audience from action piece to action piece, underneath the thrills, we still find a serious theme: No matter how much our culture has tried to call good, evil and evil, good, at our core, we all know what a hero looks like and how he or she behaves. Save for the protection of another, they don’t hurt people. They don’t burn things.
There’s a moment in the midst of an inferno that acts as a quietly devastating indictment of every recent series or film centered on the emotionally tortured anti-hero, the criminal with the heart of gold. “I think I might be fading here partner,” one of the assassins says after suffering a serious wound. “Yeah, I know,” the other answers before blithely turning back to his business.
There’s no pity, let alone honor, among thieves.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.