 |
| Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
After
his sleeper hit directorial debut Wind
River alongside an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay
with Hell or High Water, Taylor
Sheridan has proven himself to be at the forefront of a new emergence of
neo-western moviemakers. His latest
effort Those Who Wish Me Dead,
released simultaneously in theaters and HBO Max, continues in that genre but
moves the setting deeper into woodsy terrain, making for a tense, predictable
but nonetheless satisfying action suspense vehicle.
Based
on the novel by Michael Kortya co-written for the screen by Kortya and
producer-director Sheridan, the film follows in the footsteps of Peter Weir’s Witness involving a child who witnesses
a murder before going on the run from two assassins who hunt for him in the
Montana mountains. On his feet he runs
into a smokejumper named Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) who takes the boy under
her protective wing but not before the boy’s hunters turn up the heat,
literally, and it becomes a survivalist thriller.
 |
| Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
An
earthy contemporary western thriller which begins in suburban terrain before
moving into the Montana mountains, Those
Who Wish Me Dead is a solid meat-and-potatoes programmer with Jolie as an
always strong central heroic lead, a gifted performance from child actor Finn
Little and Jon Bernthal as an always welcome presence as the town Sheriff who
smells trouble well before the smoke and flames start to erupt into a full
blown conflagration.
Visually
speaking the film is chock full of breathtaking mountainous vistas interspersed
with forest evergreens before entering an orangey, firey glow as the film’s third
act kicks into high gear. Sonically the
film reunites Sheridan with Yellowstone composer
Brian Tyler who serves up a tense suspenseful score with familiar but still
effective notes.
Taylor
Sheridan’s new roughneck hard-boiled neo-western, like many new releases this
year, was completed in 2019 only to be delayed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
before going out in theaters and on streaming simultaneously. In the realm of contemporary western
thrillers with a somewhat more violent edge to them, Those Who Wish Me Dead comes on the heels of such tense recently-released
westerns as Let Him Go and News of the World as a solid
unpretentious modestly sized programmer.
 |
| Courtesy of Warner Bros. |
Though
none of the three films reinvent the wheel, they as westerns continue to
advance the possibilities of the genre in exciting and always entertainingly
new ways. Some critics have complained
Jolie is underutilized in the piece but for my money she gives us another solid
female-driven action thriller with a universally appealing premise and a
director with a clear new look upon the tense, often frightening battles fought
out on the new wide open west.
--Andrew Kotwicki
