In a rapid-fire six-year period, tall, square-jawed Midwestern writer/director Taylor Sheridan became the auteur of Forgotten America, with all the good and bad baggage that brand carries. 2015’s drug cartel movie “Sicario” is grim and problematic, but hyper tense thanks to Denis Villeneuve. 2016’s “Hell or High Water” good ol’ boys Western crime thriller was nominated for Oscar’s Best Picture and Best Screenplay. And despite a white savior trope in the world of Native Americans and its troubled history of reservations, 2017’s “Wind River,” (his second directorial effort), is a soulful, gripping crime drama (reminding us Jeremy Renner can act, to boot). Subsequent efforts have been less successful, less nuanced, and more odious in their pro-American aggression, seemingly anti-BIPOC mien (“Sicario 2,” “Without Remorse”), but within that period, Sheridan quietly launched the Midwestern farm ranch drama “Yellowstone” (a massive ratings hit for CBS/Paramount), and soon became the Martin Scorsese of Paramount+ (they’ll essentially greenlight anything he does now, and two ‘Yellowstone’ spin-offs are in the works).
Regardless, whatever Sheridan creates, ultimately good or bad, the works are usually muscular and masculine with something to say about America and the white men who live (and sometimes are aggrieved) within its borders. Sheridan isn’t overtly political, in some regards, one could argue, but living on the frontiers of the heartland and centering his narratives on ostensibly neglected white American men, his film and TV work generally brushes up alongside something contentious and always have the potential to feel quite loaded.
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Which is the longwinded way of saying, almost all of that texture is missing in Sheridan’s latest film, “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” a thriller, set in Montana starring Angelina Jolie with very little to say about America or anything else for that matter. Resembling something of a ‘90s thriller (or even movie of the week, to be honest), “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” has a pretty basic, barebones plot. It begins with a forensic accountant (Jake Weber) who goes on the run with his teenage boy (Finn Little) following the death of his boss, killed by a pair of ruthless father and son assassins Jack Blackwell (Aidan Gillen) and Patrick (Nicholas Hoult). The news purports an accident, but this accountant knows he is sitting on explosive information that can take down powerful people and this was an orchestrated hit. So, he races to get shelter and discreet help from a local law enforcement Sheriff (Jon Bernthal) instead of going to the FBI, the sensitive info being ostensibly too hot to handle.
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That’s the plot, but the real story is about traumatized smoke jumper (wildland firefighter) Hannah Faber (Jolie), who is still reeling from a recent fire she believes she misread, costing the lives of fellow firefighters and children. She’s drinking to cope and seemingly has a death wish, quickly butting heads with the aforementioned Sheriff (also her ex-boyfriend), over some of the reckless, but cathartic stunts she and her smoke jumping buddies pull off to seemingly cope with their psychic wounds and pain.
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In short, all roads lead to the Montana wilderness, and eventually, the teenager of this story is on his own—a murder witness who finds himself pursued by the twin assassins while the threat of forest fire threatens to consume them all. The boy, Connor, soon finds himself under the protection of Jolie’s Faber—now posted in a firewatch tower in the middle of the forest, seemingly relegated there for her own good so she can cool down and heal from her traumatic experience.
And while the thriller that ensues—Jolie trying to initially understand and then protect the boy from the assassins, while Bernthal’s Sherriff and pregnant wife, a survival expert (Medina Senghore), try and do the same—is fairly compelling and gripping as a lean, dramatic actioner, it’s just devoid of much subtext or even basic allegories.
Even the movie’s inciting incident—the forensic accountant’s sensitive information—which seems to hold all the potential depth of the story, is frustratingly vague. He says he’s done “the right thing” to his son, and it’s implied that powerful men in America—moneymen, politicians, etc.—could be ruined if the information is exposed, but that’s about as far as Sheridan is willing to take that potential texture of powerful, rich, presumably white American men who have doubtless abused and exploited their privilege and power.
Instead of somehow threading that substantive grain through the movie, in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” it just seems to be an excuse to tell a story of smokejumpers and their damage, the complexity of the forest fire epidemic, and the various perils of the environment in Midwestern America. Some of the exaggerations of that environment are a little silly too. Sure, it’s a hostile unforgiving environment—about the only metaphor for American Sheridan makes, which is still ambiguous at best, and maybe unintentional, to be honest—but when lighting strikes and snowballing forest fighters become aggressive, seemingly sentient attacks on the protagonists, you’re soon wondering if a herd of moose will become the next violent obstacle.
Even if the story isn’t political (hey, that’s totally fine!), it’s not especially human either. That is to say, other than the basic ideas of brave firefighters living amongst the merciless elements around them and the trauma they often face, “Those Who Wish Me Dead” also says very little about the people who inhabit the land they live on—Sheridan’s raison d’etre. When Sheridan’s not being overly political, he’s at least usually trying to say the people of the heartland are who they are because of their environment—literal or metaphoric— one that often has to be respected, deferentially feared, and honored. Hit or miss, Taylor Sheridan’s usually trying to say something about the human condition with varying degrees of success, but “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” perhaps as the title suggests, is his most basic, least complicated, and thus least interesting movie. As a taut thriller, it works, but the “why” of it all, the substance that generally makes even Sheridan’s worst efforts still fascinating, is strangely and glaringly absent. [C]
“Those Who Wish Me Dead” is available in theaters and on HBO Max now.
