Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ on HBO Max, a Thriller in Which Angelina Jolie Smokejumps Into a Ridiculous Plot

Those Who Wish Me Dead — the newest HBO Max movie with a simultaneous theatrical release and 30-day streaming expiration date — is another no-baloney thriller from Taylor Sheridan, creator of TV series Yellowstone, director/writer of Wind River and writer of Sicario and Hell or High Water. That’s a pretty strong selective resume, so there’s good reason to be excited about Sheridan directing Angelina Jolie in an action-drama about a smokejumper, a cop, a survivalist, a kid and two cold-blooded killing-ass killers with guns. Here’s hoping our enthusiasm is rewarded.

THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A forest fire rages in Montana. Firefighters parachute in. Hannah is one of them. She watches as towers of flames shift dangerously. Her eyes widen. Something has gone wrong and GASP, she awakens from a terrible nightmare. She’s haunted by her worst day on the job. Mistakes were made. People died. And she could only watch as it happened. She’s been taken off the action gig and deposited in a lonely watchtower in the woods with no bathroom, so she has to climb up and down a very tall ladder every time she’s gotta go. Things ain’t great.

Hannah and the boys, all smokejumpers and rowdy sons and daughters of bitches, like to get loaded at the local watering hole. Loaded enough for her to strap on a parachute and pull the cord while standing in the bed of a speeding pickup truck. She’s arrested by the local sheriff, Ethan (Jon Bernthal), who happens to be her ex-, and is a little worried about her. He lets her go and heads home to his wife, Allison (Medina Senghore), who’s pregnant and runs a survivalist school. She hopes he wasn’t too hard on Hannah and he laughs because his wife is concerned about his ex-girlfriend.

Meanwhile, in Fort Lauderdale, a woman lets two men into her house because they say they’re from the gas company and they got an alert about her furnace. A few minutes later, they’re driving off as the house explodes. The district attorney lived there, and now, in Jacksonville, a forensic accountant, Owen (Jake Weber), and his son Connor (Finn Little) skip work and school and town, because they’re next. These two guys are Jack (Aidan Gillen) and Patrick (Nicholas Hoult), contract killers out to off the people who know incriminating stuff about their boss. They’re the types of not-nice guys who, if you have to kill a kid, will kill a kid. Messed up.

So the accountant and his son hit the road to Montana to hang with their brother-in-law/uncle, who happens to be Ethan. The nature of this situation means they can’t trust the FBI or cops or any authority figure, see, so hiding in the woods for a bit makes sense. Of course, Jack and Patrick are on their tail because these killing-ass killers are smart and intuitive about the one place in the sprawling whole entirety of America the accountant is surely going to be. (Oy, this plot.) If at this point you don’t think all these characters are predetermined by the screenwriter gods to cross paths with a raging blaze in the background, then I hope you enjoy the first movie you’ve ever seen.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Forest-firefighters get center stage just like in Playing with Fire (oof) and Always (also oof). There’s a stroke or two of Backdraft (yes, oof) here as well. The lovely Rocky-Mountain-high valleys-and-creeks cinematography might be a signature of Sheridan the director, who had some of the same, albeit snowier, in Wind River. And an old man with a young kid driving cross-country with bad guys defying probability and knowing exactly where they’re going? Haven’t seen that since I watched The Marksman earlier this week.

Performance Worth Watching: I enjoyed watching Gillen — of The Wire and Game of Thrones fame — be nasty, especially after he gets half his face burned off and digs deep and soldiers on, wounds oozing, like an absolute psycho. This tough-guy silliness counterbalances the tender chemistry between Jolie and Little, who end up being salve for each other’s wounds as they work their way through Oy, This Plot.

Memorable Dialogue: Connor and his dad share a moment:

Owen: ‘I’m sorry.”

Connor: “You did the right thing, right?”

Owen: “I’m still sorry.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Oy, This Plot should be held above a forest fire because it doesn’t hold water, so the water will fall out and maybe help put out the forest fire. There are plot devices and contrivances scattered about like wooden alphabet blocks in a daycare. And yet, Sheridan leavens the movie with the ruthless urgency of an old-school thriller bent on our entertainment, or else. There’s just enough character development and emotional engagement to make us feel invested in the safety and heroism of the good guys and the demise of the bad guys. Shootouts, hostage situations, car wrecks, fire and even lightning strikes comprise the action, doled out in regular intervals, and we feel tense, held in the moment, belief temporarily suspended, not thinking too much.

There’s much to be said about movies like this, which cultivate some much-needed escapism with star power and strong filmmaking. Jolie headlines, but it’s an ensemble effort — Bernthal and Gillen show color and verve, Weber and Little generate some memorable father-son emo-chemistry, Senghore enjoys some badass moments. The cinematography is robust, capturing the rustic beauty and danger of the setting, and Sheridan has a good eye for striking imagery, especially when orange flames light the scene and ash floats poetically through the air. The script has its moments, but doesn’t have the panache or depth of Hell or High Water or Wind River, modern Westerns that, unlike this movie, had something to say. But Those Who Wish Me Dead bears enough of Sherdian’s rugged trademarks to merit 100 minutes of your time.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Those Who Wish Me Dead is far from Sheridan’s best work, but it’s nonetheless a taut and effective thriller.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Those Who Wish Me Dead on HBO Max