Those Who Wish Me Dead Review

How close can the human body get to a forest fire before they're skins a roasted marshmallow and their lungs black with soot? I'm not sure, but if the newest Angelina Jolie action thriller "Those Who Wish Me Dead" is to be believed, you can get so close it'd light your cigarette. That last part isn't demonstrated in the actual movie- it's an expression, though, considering the subject matter, perhaps a tasteless one. 

Anyway I'm getting distracted here, what you need to know is that what is shown here is violent, exciting, and sickening, a thriller where spliced between shots of what looked like real actors in front of real fires are constant attacks on women, including a pregnant woman, kids, and bystanders. Random acts of aggression are shot in brutal fashion. This intensity crawled under my skin and didn't go away, leaving me uncomfortable with the rest of the feature.

The rest? That's the exciting part. Jolie plays "H," a firewatcher with a penchant for booze and a some bad history. Her ex Ethan (Jon Bernthal) is the local cop (because of course he is), and this is where the two parallel stories intercept.

When Owen (Jake Weber) catches on the news that a judge has perished in a house explosion, he sees past the purported accident as an assassination, grabs his son (Finn Little) and they head off for an old pal, Ethan the cop. Knowing he'll likely not make it, he writes down what is just so important on a piece of paper, and gives it to his son.

The bad guys (Nicholas Hoult and Aidan Gillen), who through a stroke of pure movie coincidence, set up a trap on the very road the dad is traveling on, snipe him and the car goes off the road. After some bloody gunshots the father's dead and the kid escapes, where he runs into Jolie.

The villains know that the dad was smart enough to have a copy of what's so important with his son, and so the chase begins to locate the kid and to quote criminal mastermind Arthur (Tyler Perry), "we deal in absolutes." Bad news for the bad guys, as the father was so smart that he penned it on waterproof paper- I mean, how else can you explain the note remaining so important even after a swim in the local river?

The nasty duo work for this "Arthur." He appears in one seen, recites some doomy dialogue and then disappears. Who he is and what he does is not really clear, but when a sunglasses wearing man in a suit appears in one of these kind of movies, he can't be trusted.

Where never told what's on the paper. People in the movie know what's on it. We see characters read it, but there is no follow through. Since we never know, we are robbed of the stakes at play. We do know people are in danger, since we see men with guns hunting them down, but without context, we the audience struggle with the motive of the antagonists. Vague talk about "finishing the job" or some nonsense mean nothing if we don't know what the job is or who they are!

The narrative is relatively simple and director Taylor Sheridan handles the action and dramatic moments with solid flair. He lightens the dour mood a bit with some entertaining chitchat between the kid and H, but this is a squarely adult piece of cinema. It is dark and depressing, and even once the credits are getting ready to roll, my body and mind was exhausted. I felt sad and like I needed to shower. "Those Who Want Me Dead" should come with a picture of a cute puppy and a loofah.