Those Who Wish Me Dead is a cool title for a very hollow but passable thriller.

Score: 3/5

I have to admit between the cast and the director/writer Taylor Sheridan, I had my hopes high on Those Who Wish Me Dead. The premise seemed simple enough, but after many of the previous films Sheridan was involved in, I thought maybe this one had more to it. Welp, that was the wrong assumption to make. Let’s dig into this one.

Those Who Wish Me Dead follows a boy named Connor whose father was unfortunately privy to some pretty incriminating information on someone of power. Maybe it was a whole bunch of rich people or perhaps just one person, the movie doesn’t really dive into what the heck the guy knew, only that it was worth killing anyone who knows about it or someone who comes in contact with a person who knows about it. A McGuffin, if you will. Poor Connor happens to escape his fate and while wandering in the Montana wilderness he stumbles upon Angelina Jolie’s Hannah, a wilderness firefighter stationed on a watch tower assignment. From there, the story turns into the heroes attempting to protect the kid and the assassins trying to kill said kid.

There are moments of depth for Hannah, but they are not explored in great detail, nor are any other characters. It’s very surface level which is a shame because there could have been more to this. I assume that might be the case in the book it’s based on. It feels like this is a story meant to play in Hannah’s head to reveal much more about her struggles. Sadly, it’s just not there in the script. So, moving past that, what do you have? Well, again, it’s a really great cast. I especially like the survivalist couple Ethan and Allison, played by Jon Bernthal and Medina Senghore, who add fun twists to the proceedings. In fact, I think it would have been a much more entertaining movie if it centered around those two and expanded on the story beats they were involved in. The other significant leads, Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult play the assassins, Jack and Patrick. They are generic assassins. Poor Gillen seems to be typecast now in these henchmen bad guy roles that are paper thin in the background. He’s a bad guy because bad guy-type stuff.

This all speaks to the theme of this movie: it’s very by the numbers, moves at a breakneck pace, and never allows room to really do more than be a passable thriller on its best night. Which hey, not bad if that’s all you are looking for. Which is where my recommendation is coming from. This movie isn’t bad for the blanket-not-thinking entertainment value. It has great actors, an easy-to-follow story, and the wilderness setting isn’t used nearly enough, so it separates itself from other movies just like this. So, if that is good enough for you, well, go ahead and give this one a watch.