Those Who Wish Me Dead

I wonder if I've ever seen a more inept duo of killers in a movie. If they were clumsier, Those Who Wish Me Dead could have been a comedy. Otherwise, I don't really understand why a film starring such big names turned out to be so mediocre. It’s watchable, but it doesn’t stand out in anything. I prefer Sheridan as a director in the snow, and Angelina... well, nowhere really. (14/05/2021)

Pat and Mat in an unintentional parody of something that should have been dramatic at least on a basic level, but is just pitifully ridiculous. Taylor Sheridan is going downhill. I guess he likes fruit, so he wants a Golden Raspberry, otherwise, it’s a mystery. He was writing and filming Yellowstone at the same time, which is completely, completely different with its nourishing emotions and perfectly logically constructed story. In this film I recognized the sensitive Sheridan only in a small subtle scene stroking a horse, otherwise I spent the whole second half banging my head against the wall out of boredom, brushing crumbs out of my beard, counting fingers on my hand and looking at my watch to see how much more of this emotional torture I would have to endure. (25/05/2021)

So I guess I know how non-Stephen King readers feel when they watch an adaptation of one of his books, from which not much made it to film, and try to get their bearings on the plot and figure out what's so interesting about the book. This will probably be the same case, because already the synopsis of Those Who Wish Me Dead is almost a completely different story. But who cares if the film is good – and Taylor Sheridan can make good films. This time, however... I didn’t work. The story is strange, the heroes and the villains are gifted with an almost supernatural luck that has nothing to do with reality, the whole thing doesn’t make much sense and when it finishes, not much is left in your head. It’s a real shame, because the cast is great, it looks good, it sounds good, etc. Maybe next time. (05/03/2022)

Thanks to Sicario, Wind River, and the few Yellowstone episodes I've seen, I like Taylor Sheridan a lot, and I was understandably excited for his new release. Unlike my colleagues, however, I had the advantage of having read the book, so I was rather cautiously looking forward to it. And thanks for that, because that's why I’m so disappointed with Those Who Wish Me Dead. While Sheridan did get rid of some rather boring and unnecessary plot lines, unfortunately he was left with what was already a problem in the book. That is, rather uninteresting characters and, above all, the pointless waiting for something to actually start happening. Angelina Jolie sits on a watchtower with a trauma, Jon Bernthal is a cool sheriff dealing with an expectant family, a little boy whose dad pissed off the wrong people who killed him runs around the woods, and ridiculously incompetent hit men try to complicate everyone's lives. And it takes an hour for all the uninteresting plot lines to come together, the forest to catch fire, and for Angelina to finally be able to save the day. The ending doesn't look bad, and as a survival thriller set in a burning forest it could be interesting, except that we have that hour beforehand to spend with boring characters on a story that is, to say the least, B-grade trite and simple, which I don't mean as a compliment. I'm finally going to finish watching Yellowstone to fix my appetite and remind myself why I like Sheridan in the first place. (17/05/2021)

The veiled answer to the question of who set Democratic California on fire under Trump? A classic thriller theme of good guys on the run from hired killers, promisingly set in a forest imperiled by a wildfire. The bad guys are solid and well cast, but Angelina doesn’t fit here at all. A chick like that wouldn’t do this work, especially not in America. And the whole movie gradually slides into such naïveté, as well as silly clichés and pathos. And that’s a shame. (13/12/2021)