‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ a solid action thriller
MOVIE REVIEW
“THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD”
Rated R. At AMC Boston Common, Regal Fenway, AMC South Bay and Landmark Kendall Square and on HBO MAX.
Grade: B
A perfectly acceptable hybrid of crime thriller and forest fire movie, “Those Who Wish Me Dead” will remind some of the Sylvester Stallone 1990s hit “Cliffhanger,” which is to say that a decent film does not have to be smart. Directed and co-written by Taylor Sheridan (TV’s “Yellowstone”) and adapted from a book by Michael Koryta, the film stars Angelina Jolie as a forest firefighter who looks like a supermodel. Jolie is Hannah Faber, and like the Stallone figure in “Cliffhanger,” she has a tragic backstory. A fire she was in charge of fighting switched direction, and she had to watch three children burn to death.
The film opens in a town where a district attorney’s home is blown up, killing everyone inside. The culprits are Jack (Aidan Gillen, “Game of Thrones”) and Patrick (Nicholas Hoult, “Mad Max: Fury Road”), two heavily armed assassins who are also masters of disguise. An accountant named Owen (Jake Weber), helping the D.A. put together a case, realizes he and his 12-year-old son Connor are the next targets and tries to get them away to his brother-in-law, a sheriff named Ethan (Jon Bernthal). They are ambushed by Jack and Patrick and only Connor (Finn Little) gets to the forest near Ethan’s home (the film was shot in New Mexico). There Connor encounters Hannah, who is on lookout duty at a forest tower near the Continental Divide, and the two try to evade the killers and avoid a forest fire the killers start to create a distraction.
Sheridan, who wrote “Hell or High Water” and “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” knows how to slide the puzzle pieces neatly into place. Hannah, we learn, is “weird,” and she is Ethan’s ex. He is now married to Allison (Medina Senghore, TV’s “Happy!”), who is six-months pregnant, and, yes, you will tense up when the killers violently question her and threaten her life. Ditto for a scene in which Patrick swears to continue to beat Hannah to death if Connor does not give himself up. The fire effects are very well done. Yes, we will get a cliched scene in which Hannah wakes up with a gasp as she has a nightmare about the death of the children. You may notice that almost every role is up-cast, which is to say a better actor plays the part than you think normal for a film of this sort. But that is a good thing. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Tyler Perry as the film’s Mr. Big, and he has one scene. After tangling with Allison, Jack comes out looking like Two-Face of Batman fame. His reaction? “I hate this place.”
Jolie does not so much carry the film as make a nice, glamorous contribution as part of a talented ensemble cast. She even lets the kid actor upstage her in a scene or two. When Connor refers to the thin Hannah as “skinny,” she counters with, “I’m lean.” Her role and her performance recall Meryl Streep’s turn in another ’90s favorite “The River Wild.” “Those Who Wish Me Dead” is not as good as Curtis Hanson’s 1994 film. But it’s a polished and solid piece of work.
(“Those Who Wish Me Dead” contains extreme violence and profanity.)
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2RQzKNl
Post a Comment