Those Who Wish Me Dead

I have a distinct memory of watching Those Who Wish Me Dead on a Tuesday afternoon while wearing one mismatched sock because I couldn’t be bothered to find the other one. It was 2021, the world was still a confusing blur of "hybrid releases" and "day-and-date" streaming strategies, and this movie felt like a ghost. It arrived on HBO Max with a whisper, stayed for a few weeks, and then seemingly vanished into the digital ether. It’s a shame, really, because this is exactly the kind of mid-budget, grit-under-the-fingernails thriller that Hollywood used to churn out every summer, but now feels like a rare artifact.

The Last of the Practical Legends

Directed by Taylor Sheridan—the man currently responsible for about 90% of the cowboy-adjacent content on your television (see: Yellowstone, Wind River, Hell or High Water)—this film is a neo-Western masquerading as a disaster flick. It stars Angelina Jolie as Hannah Faber, a smokejumper stationed in a lonely fire lookout tower in Montana. She’s haunted by a past failure (the classic "hero with trauma" trope), but the movie quickly pivots from a character study into a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse.

Enter Finn Little as Connor, a kid on the run with a secret that could topple some very powerful people. Chasing him are two of the coldest, most business-casual assassins you’ll ever meet, played by Nicholas Hoult and Aidan Gillen. I loved the dynamic between these two; they don't give long-winded monologues about their motivations. They just show up, do the job, and look like they’re checking off a grocery list while committing multiple felonies. Hoult, specifically, trades his usual boyish charm for a chilling, robotic efficiency that makes you realize just how underrated he is as a character actor.

Fire, Lead, and Montana Dirt

What sets this apart from your standard streaming-era action fare is the physical weight of it. In an age where every explosion is a digital composite and every background is a green screen, Sheridan went the opposite route. To film the climactic forest fire, the production actually built a "forest" of several hundred real trees on a desert lot and set the whole thing ablaze. You can see the difference. When Angelina Jolie is sprinting through the smoke, the heat looks real because it was.

The action choreography isn't about "John Wick" style gun-fu; it’s about survival. It’s messy, desperate, and occasionally brutal. There’s a sequence involving a lightning storm in an open field that gave me legitimate anxiety. It’s a reminder that nature is just as much of a villain here as the guys with the suppressed rifles. Jon Bernthal shows up as a local sheriff, and as is the law in modern cinema, he brings a level of raw intensity that makes every scene feel like a life-or-death struggle. Seriously, if Jon Bernthal isn’t breathing heavily and looking stressed, is it even a movie?

Lost in the Streaming Shuffle

So, why haven't more people talked about this? Released during that weird transitional period of the pandemic, Those Who Wish Me Dead suffered from the "Warner Bros. 2021" experiment. By putting it on streaming the same day it hit theaters, the studio essentially told the audience, "This isn't an event; it's just content." But this film deserves better than being relegated to a thumbnail you scroll past on a Friday night.

It’s a "Dad Movie" in the best possible sense—a tight, 100-minute thriller that values practical stunts over lore-building and character beats over franchise potential. It doesn't want to start a cinematic universe; it just wants to show you a woman fighting a forest fire while dodging bullets. There’s an refreshing simplicity to it that I find myself craving more and more as we get bogged down in three-hour epics and multiverse fatigue.

The script, co-written by Sheridan and Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond), handles the pacing with a veteran’s hand. It breathes when it needs to—letting us see the bond form between Jolie and Little—but when the match is lit, it moves with a terrifying momentum. I’ll admit, some of the villains' "secret conspiracy" stuff feels a bit thin, but when the trees start cracking and the embers start flying, you won't care about the logistics of the plot.

Ultimately, Those Who Wish Me Dead is a lean, mean survival machine. It’s a showcase for Angelina Jolie’s return to the kind of grounded, physical roles that made her a star, and a testament to Taylor Sheridan’s ability to make the wilderness feel like a claustrophobic trap. If you’re looking for a thriller that feels like a throwback to the 90s but with the polished edge of contemporary filmmaking, this is a hidden gem worth digging out of the digital ash. Just make sure you find both of your socks before you sit down to watch it.