24 • Thursday, June 17, 2021 • On the Edge of the Weekend
All Sheridan’s previous movies better than ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’
By Robert D. Grubaugh For The Edge
I think it’s getting harder and harder to get excited about the movies, and it should probably be exactly the opposite right now. Believe it or not, we’re coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and doors are opening for us to get back to the things we used to love, like, going to a neighborhood cinema. For well over one year, I’ve been doing my darnedest to keep you abreast of the state of the movie business: how it’s remained there for us in many strange and never-before-seen incarnations, and why it matters that we continue to believe in the communal aspect of sitting together with strangers in the dark and enjoying something wondrous. Can we get that back or has it been lost for good? I don’t think so, but now doubt crosses my mind, whereas it didn’t before. Let me tell you about going to watch Angelina Jolie in her new film, “Those Who Wish
Me Dead.” A few weeks ago the feature film was looming just outside of my writing deadline as the lone about-to-open wide release. I was excited to see the movie star/tabloid staple/Oscar winner and, to some, a role model, in a new movie. Jolie is an able director who honed her directing chops in indie projects. She became a major action picture draw 20 years ago, including in the hits “Tomb Raider,” “Salt” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” as well as “Maleficent.” She became a directorial force with several well-regarded but under-viewed dramatic swings. Her relationship with Brad Pitt was followed more closely by Americans than her directorial debut “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” Yet, it took me 13 days to go see her new movie under rather nominal conditions. Theaters aren’t exactly making it easy, with their weird, truncated operating hours and strange booking patterns, but I’m savvy to this. I just wasn’t motivated to go to a theater. This worries me, because I’m the most-moti-
Jolie in “Those Who Wish Me Dead.” (Courtesy of Warner Bros./For The Edge)
vated moviegoer I know. Anyhow, in “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” Jolie plays Hannah, a wildland firefighter dismissed to a remote watchtower upon failing a psychological review to retain her cred as an elite smokejumper. She’d botched her chance to lead a successful fire rescue the year before, and is suffering from remembering all the people who got killed because of her failure in messing up the leadership opportunity. Her trauma is a great penalty for her. Spending time alone in the wilderness, Hannah encounters Connor (Finn Little), a teen on the run from a pair of would-be killers (Aidan Gillen, Nicholas Hoult), who are trying to stop the teen from exposing secrets about their boss (Tyler Perry). These secrets could get them all in some big, fat, unexplored trouble, which is never clearly explained. Connor came to be alone in the woods after they assassinated his father (Jake Weber), who was trying to get his son to safety with relatives (Jon Bernthal, Medina Seng-
hore) in Montana. The potential assassins start a forest fire to add another element to the plot that connects the dots to smokejumpers. Screenwriter/director Taylor Sheridan’s previous movies also featured Mother Nature and major violence. Those movies also were better than “Those Who Wish Me Dead.” So how do we pull ourselves up from the moderate disappointment of a mediocre flick? Get back on the horse. The sequel to “A Quiet Place” opened for Memorial Day, alongside Disney’s “Cruella,” with Emma Stone in her first action role in two years. I do so love my matinees, but I’d even go out at night to see either of these pictures. And it won’t take me another two weeks to see them. “Those Who Wish Me Dead” runs 100 minutes and is rated R for strong violence and language throughout. I give this film one star out of four.
