Those Who Wish Me Dead

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Once again, we have a last-minute change to my Now Playing review this week. The good news is I may have found a reliable source to give me a better idea of the release schedule, what will be theatrical only (in this case, 'Spiral'), and what I can find on VOD (this, which I really couldn't tell you would be a better or worse movie than a new 'Saw' flick). All in all, I wasn't entirely impressed with this one, and I have to wonder if the book its based on is better. Let's just dive right in, shall we?

We are introduced to a smokejumper (a firefighter specializing in wildfires) named Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie). She suffers from haunting memories of a fire she once misjudged that consumed three young boys right in front of her. Nowadays, she is posted in a fire lookout tower in Park County, Montana. Her ex-boyfriend, Ethan Sawyer (Jon Bernthal), is the town's Deputy Sheriff, living a happy life with his wife, Allison (Medina Senghore). However, he soon finds himself caught in the middle of something rather major.

Ethan's brother-in-law, Owen Casserly (Jake Weber) is a forensic accountant who learns of a hit on his boss. Believing he's next on the list for these assassins, Jack and Patrick Blackwell (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult, respectively), Owen makes the decision to skip town with his son, Connor (Finn Little). He seeks refuge with Ethan, somewhere deep in the woods and well-hidden. However, the Blackwell brothers catch up to the father/son duo and open fire. While Conner survives, Owen is killed, and Conner finds himself on the run from the assassins who assume he could be carrying evidence against their employer; a mob boss named Arthur Phillip (Tyler Perry).

Of course, this miraculously leads Conner right into Hannah's neck of the woods, and Hannah inadvertently finds herself provided with an opportunity to help out someone new. Eventually it turns into a whole escort mission movie where the Blackwells are trying to prevent their every move. I mean, honestly, it's a real downer of a movie altogether. There's tugging at the heartstrings, but then there's slamming tragedy into someone's face, and that's largely what this does. Between Hannah and Conner, there's hardly a scene where one of them isn't sobbing. The situations are understandable, but altogether forced.

All in all, I wasn't a fan of this one. If the heavy-handed emotion isn't enough, these hitmen really go to extremes to carry out their work without any sort of subtlety. Jack, for example, just wants to set everything on fire. Of course, this includes the forest itself, eventually, and all you really see in the character is Baelish from 'Game of Thrones'; he's just a straight up terrible person. Either way, basically everyone starring in this is doing a better job elsewhere. This was something I found altogether forgettable, somewhat confusing, and something that beats you down with a message of "look how sad this is!" It also seems to have moments that don't make a whole lot of sense, light lightning hitting the ground around them about 50 times as they try to dodge it. I COULD be wrong about how lightning works, but I can't imagine that's actually a thing.

I'm not going to claim this as unwatchable garbage or anything like that, as it seems there's enough people who do get some good from this. But it's not something I can honestly recommend either. I would suggest that the film tries a bit too hard, and as mentioned before, it just ends up being a total downer of a movie. I mean, the whole plot is surrounded by the idea of dying children, whether it's Hannah's memories of the kids she couldn't save, or Conner being hunted. So while we're still in this iffy pandemic period, this might not provide the best viewing material. But then again, this review is replacing 'Spiral: From the Book of Saw', so... who knows maybe I got the better end of the stick.

2/5

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