Towering Wilderness Inferno

THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD (2021)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

In a title that seems to echo an unmade Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western, Angelina Jolie returns to the cinema screens to imbue us with her crackling presence. Jolie crackles indeed and she burnishes the screen with a phosphorescent glow that is apropos for the action thriller dynamics of "Those Who Wish Me Dead." The film works technically as pop entertainment, has good performances and is well-made yet the characters needed more nourishment at the screenplay level.

Jolie plays Hannah Faber, a smokejumper who is mostly confined to a fire lookout tower with no bathroom. Hannah is guilt-ridden over a tragic forest fire where she failed to save some children who perished (to be fair, it seems almost an impossible rescue from the occasional flashbacks we see). Hanna's exposition is set up nicely, including her curious need to be a daredevil by parachuting while standing in the back of a speeding truck. This is the perfect kind of wild, untamed character for Jolie to play, a woman who is a little crazy yet her weakness is her PTSD. Yet "Those Who Wish Me Dead" has a curious habit of setting up supporting characters who could almost anchor this story as well. We have a forensic accountant and his son who are on the run from some fairly cold-blooded assassin brothers (exceedingly well-played by Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult). The kids' father dies quickly in a planned shootout that seems too contrived. The kid, known as Connor (Finn Little), escapes unnoticed until he runs into Hannah. She helps out the kid and wants to protect him and they stay in the tower. The assassins discover there is a liability, the kid as a witness, so they decide to literally scorch the earth searching for him by performing arson duties in the forest. Um, if the kid burns to death in that vast wilderness, how will the killers know so they can report it back to their boss? I don't look for logic in these movies but that is a hard twist to ignore, especially when you consider they ignite a wilderness fire and are still looking for the local sheriff who they believe is harboring the boy. Pardon?

The local sheriff, by the way, is Ethan Sawyer (Jon Bernthal), who once dated Hannah, and is now married to the very pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghore). They run a wilderness survival camp and the intimate scenes between Ethan and Allison are so good, so touching in their affection for each other that a separate movie could've been made about them. Yet the screenplay introduces characters with some measure of personality and then abandons them until it is convenient to bring them back and face certain death from these assassins. Allison ably defends herself against both and even (SPOILERS) defends Hannah and the kid so why is Hannah needed as the protector? Allison could have been the lead character yet the one who is presented as heroic is Hannah. I suppose it is more acceptable for filmmakers to have a grand inferno finale that, though unbelievable in hindsight, gives Jolie the impetus to be the savior because such actions warrant a redemption that is never fully realized.

"Those Who Wish Me Dead" is fleetingly a fair and somewhat entertaining thriller by Taylor Sheridan and Jolie strikes a deep chord yet the issue I have is that the supporting characters are just as interesting.  Maybe Jolie, Connor and the couple should've been in that 50 foot tower together and then you would have had a probing character study with the prospect of danger from the assassins and the inferno. As is, scenes often trample over each other with too little story or character definition that would otherwise have given this a major lift. I only wished for more orderly structure.