Those Who Wish Me Dead Review

Film Details

American neo-Western action thriller “Those Who Wish Me Dead”, the film was released on 5th May 2021 in South Korea and 14th May 2020 in the United States. The film was directed by Taylor Sheridan and produced by Steven Zaillian, Garrett Basch, Aaron L. Gilbert, Kevin Turen, and Taylor Sheridan. The film starring Angelina Jolie, Nicholas Hoult, Finn Little, Aidan Gillen, Medina Senghore, Tyler Perry, Jake Weber, and Jon Bernthal.

Film Review

A teenage murder witness finds himself pursued by twin assassins through the Montana wilderness with a survival expert tasked to protect him and a forest fire threatening to kill them all.

The film is quite short only 100 minutes and it just feels like if they had 10 or 15 minutes more then the actors could have really had the opportunity to add the emotional weight to truly complete their arcs.

As it is all the characters just seem a little underwhelming they all seem at the first sort of 40 minutes you’re quite into it and you’re like hey these are cool people this is interesting, you know there’s some interesting dynamics set up here but just nothing’s done with any of it.

The cinematography is great with some really beautiful shots of the wilderness you know the hills the mountains the forests and of course that there are some really beautiful shots of the fire as well. It’s just a shame that the script is so bad actually that’s me being a little bit too harsh it’s not that bad. There are some real clunky dialogue scenes, the sheriff and his wife who are six months pregnant, when they first interact, when they were talking to each other, my reaction were like what, what did you say, what does that mean, what at the end of the day the problem. The biggest problem is that the character arcs are poorly executed you have interesting setups that are fairly traditional for these kinds of characters, you’ve seen these before, you’ve seen these people before in other films, but then it’s not paid off in a very
satisfying way.

This kind of movie isn’t rocket science actually for, if you’re a first-time writer or director this is a great kind of movie for you because these archetypes and these stereotypes are well worn and well known to your audience and so all you have to do is follow those templates and pay it off. In a satisfying way and you’ll have a pretty good first movie under your belt. The problem is if you shoot for the stars and you want to change those well-known conclusions to each storyline, then you’re running a risk, and it better be that your alternatives to those are amazing because, when you’ve got story arcs that are well developed and have been done many many times the audience then comes to expect it if you’re then going to change it, you’re going to jolt the audience out of their suspension of disbelief in which case what you change it for must be pretty awesome.

If I tell my daughter, she’s getting a chocolate cake for her birthday and I turn up with mango pudding
it better be an amazing mango pudding to get over the disappointment of her not having chocolate cake, and that’s kind of how a lot of these story arcs feel ultimately, each of the endings of each of the characters story arcs isn’t very satisfying, you’re waiting for the moment that you know is coming but it never really does and it’s never really done.

Properly it’s never sort of fully done you never have those fully emotional moments that you’re expecting, and you know you can say oh that’s great you know they’re trying something new. But there’s something new that has to be amazing. What is criminal though is that you have genuine threats that are built up
and built up really effectively and then when it comes for them to really shine and to really make our main characters fear what’s going on, they’re just undercut, especially around the forest fire there are two-story arcs where the way they sort of resolve, I’m sitting there and I’m going is that reality now, I’m not a forest fire expert I mean you know obviously you would imagine action hero potential you know Mr. Gang
out every weekend white water rafting and hiking and you know obviously. But believe it or not, I don’t
know anything about survival and I don’t know anything about forest fires but still, two things happened which made me stop and go is that would that work wouldn’t that be horrifically hot and kill you like really quickly, would you be able to survive like that. It’s sitting there going hang on wait does that work would
that happen then you’ve moved your audience are not suspending their disbelief anymore they’re sitting there they’re questioning you they’re asking, questions about what’s going on and the likelihood of that and it just removes any tension it removes any sort of emotional payoff and you know that you can’t do that to your audience and expect them to really react to a film and to really love it I have to say though that.

I watched this film two days ago now and, I have googled forest fire ash since then and I don’t think they could have done that, oh no spoiler-free right so the fire is not as scary as it should be when the script needs it to stop being scary, and the assassins as well who the description says they’re twins I don’t think they’re twins, brothers, I can accept because they’ve got the same surname, but you’ve got a great couple of actors there, Aidan Gillan just oozes menace from every paw that man’s phenomenal he was one of the best things in Game Of Thrones and he’s just he’s great and Nicholas hall is just huge he’s like a mountain good lord he must be like 10 foot okay six foot two maybe, but you know he’s huge, he looks genuinely quite intimidating and also a bit weird so he looks like that kind of weird psycho that you would expect him, that you would expect an assassin to be.

So you’ve got two actors playing their assassin, the assassins and they’re great and they are built up as clinical sadistic, uncaring exactly what they should be. Until the script needs them to spare someone’s life, and so then they start acting like complete dumb asses and get outfoxed by just everybody and it’s you’ve given me these scary guys and then you’ve taken away their threat and I’m like hey.

Hey hey just you know they’ve put in a position where I think, they would have had to have done something slightly untasteful, but if you’re gonna write your story to be like that then you’ve got to follow
through, if you’re going to put someone in threat where audiences might go oh like that then you’ve got to follow through with that you can’t, you can’t wimp out if you’re not going to follow through then don’t put them in that position in the first place because

The individual that they’re screwing off against, they don’t need to be in the rest of the film they don’t you could do it other ways, so either follow through on what you’re setting up or don’t bother. Because when the threat is removed they kind of started acting dumb and even when the character says to the other, hey you know, what you’re, you’re like acting kind of weird now, after something happens the characters
acknowledging that they’re doing up making odd choices, does not excuse the fact that they’re making odd choices when they’re supposed to be sort of ruthless professionals. Oh and the final thing that,
made me raise an eyebrow, I don’t really care about this, but it did make me raise an eyebrow in, that I was just like, oh really! yeah, I suppose so, that’s fine again though for the words I suppose so or, it’s just an action movie or it’s just a film or it’s not really come out of my mouth, then you know that that’s a bad thing
and this film broke new ground in giving us. A six-month pregnant action hero and I’ve got three children, I’ve got well hang on three, six, nine I’ve got ten nephews and nieces, I’ve known a lot of women who have been heavily pregnant at six months and I’m telling you that they are not climbing up fire towers and they’re not going horseback riding and they’re not doing archery and gunfire you know. I’m just saying it’s fine it’s okay it, just pushes the line a little bit and with the other things where they sort of push believability a little bit, then it kind of becomes a bit weird.

I mean you know she’s cool she’s a badass you know, hooray! I kind of like her as a character I just find it a little bit unbelievable, give me something else to worry about you really want to die for this kid, would I recommend it no, not really it’s not bad it’s just forgettable everyone goes, through the motions and they all know, what needs to be done to make a film like this work. It’s just that the director and the writers, made some basic choices that just make it make it not very satisfying, it’s not a great movie it’s not a good movie really, but it’s not awful.

I mean if you want to go to the cinema, if you’ve been stuck in your house in quarantine for months and you’re you can get out now and you know your other half is like, hey, there’s an Angelina Jolie movie, let’s go watch that then yeah, you it’s fine you just won’t remember this movie in six months time and from my point of view, that’s quite a damning comment mediocrity is the worst thing give me the garbage that’s hilarious or give me an epic moment in the cinema or give me something that’s enjoyable and exciting. Just don’t give me something that’s, yeah what happens next.

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GSR

My name is Gourav Singh, and some of my favorite hobbies include watching movies and television series, playing sports, and listening to music. For my blog posts, I prefer to write about themes that are lighthearted and fun to read and write about. To keep things light and entertaining, I'll include funny observations on life or a summary of the most recent entertainment news. Check out my blog if you're in the mood for some light entertainment.