Firefighter Hannah (Angelina Jolie) is suffering from green screen PTSD. I’m not sure there’s another way to put it. Costume and makeup clearly decided that as long they outfitted Jolie in a wildfire getup, we wouldn’t notice that in the middle of a forest blaze, she still looks like a supermodel. And it’s good thing, too, cuz the kids that trouble poor Hannah’s soul seem fairly rescue-able to me:
“Chief! Who’s gonna save those kids over there?”
“They’re lost. Forget about them.”
“But … but .. it’s daylight … and they’re right there (points).”
“Do you not see the raging inferno, too? They’re gone.”
“We can see them, clearly. They’re like twenty yards away. I’m wearing several tools for exactly this purpose…can we not cut a path or douse the smaller fires near them?”
“Dammit, man! You’re not listening. Move on!”
“I’m even wearing an entire fire resistant outfit. I could march in there, grab all three, carry them out and be back in thirty seconds. Heck, we could have rescued them instead of having this argument.”
“And now they’re gone. We just can’t save them all.”
“…I can still see them; I can even hear them. If we had a rope, we could lasso them.”
“Goners all. Sad.”
So Hannah has taken to drinking like one of the boys and cheap thrill-seeking like one of the younger boys to drown her memories. Her reckless behavior is punished severely: she has to patrol a scenic lookout post deep into the Montana woods by herself. This is a punishment? You’re taking somebody who has devoted their life to the preservation of beauty in the wilderness and presented them with an unhindered abundance of beauty in the wilderness. Look, if the woods were my thing, this would be absolute heaven. But to each her own, huh?
Meanwhile, in another film, mob hitters (Aiden Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) are after a stoolie on the run. Tracking him to Montana, they manage to get the jump on the target by anticipating exactly where he’s going, how he’s getting there, and what route
he’s taking … and still manage to blow the hit, losing the stoolie’s child in the process. I don’t want to have to tell you your job, but if you can anticipate everything about a hit and still mess it up, well, let’s just say mob boss Tyler Perry should be looking for some new hitmen.
Anyhoo, the point is loose child (Finn Little — my favorite nursery rhyme character), loose cannon (Jolie), and loose plot all come together. Can these two stay alive with hitmen AND a raging forest fire coming for them? How long exactly until you stop believing in this story? For me it happened sixty seconds in with the supermodel-in-a-firefighter helmet shot. You couldn’t at least smudge her face with soot or something?
Those Who Wish Me Dead is terrible title for a film about a firefighter; it’s a passable title for a film about somebody on the run, but less so when that run includes a raging inferno. In retrospect, the film combines the stupidity of Cliffhanger with the futility of Only the Brave. I dunno what you’ve been doing during COVID Angie, but that ain’t it, chief. In addition to an idiot plot and serious wardrobe/makeup issues, Those Who Wish Me Dead wastes two of my favorite actors – Nicholas Hoult and Tyler Perry – on forgettable roles. They’re both better than this. It seems an absolute shame for Tyler to skirt his usual Madea crap only to indulge a role you’ll miss entirely even if you see the film.
There once was a model named Hannah
Who fought fires in forested Montana
But troubled was she
With PTSD
From a movie seen in her cabana
Rated R, 100 Minutes
Director: Taylor Sheridan
Writer: Michael Koryta and Charles Leavitt and Taylor Sheridan
Genre: Wildfires aren’t exciting enough
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Er … maybe you didn’t get enough of Cliffhanger
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Realists
