‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ blends personal tale, grand disaster

Taylor Sheridan — who has gained a fanbase for his directing (“Wind River”), writing (“Hell or High Water”) and showrunning (“Yellowstone”) – delivers another great film with “Those Who Wish Me Dead” (HBO Max and theaters). As the wordy yet tasty title suggests, it’s gritty but also meaty.

Familiar but not predictable

Director/co-writer Sheridan works with a familiar plot (potential whistleblowers on the run from experienced assassins), but doesn’t let a scene go by where you think “Well, that was predictable.” Most moments are slightly different from the cinematic norm yet closer to how they might happen in real life.

Everyone is a real person in “TWWMD,” which doesn’t try for schmaltz amid the grandeur of a massive Montana forest fire and several shootouts. Yet it earned misty eyes from me anyway as it chronicles two strangers – depressive firefighter Hannah (Angelina Jolie) and scared but brave kid Connor (Finn Little) – who team up to survive.

---

---

Also, the bad guys are people, not clichés. I’m not saying they are admirable people, not even close. But Jack (Aiden Gillen) and Patrick (Nicholas Hoult, in a magnetic departure from his “X-Men” hero) are grounded and humanized when we see them use military tactics in their pursuit of their targets, when they complain about their jobs, and when Jack’s health is fading. For Patrick, the job must go on, but losing a partner is not nothing to him.

Strong actors

“TWWMD” is a smorgasbord of strong actors performing strong material. I was delighted to see Jake Weber, the dad on “Medium.” Again he plays a father, this time a pragmatic one who is being hunted as a whistleblower and who aims to train Connor to survive and get the word out in his stead, all while trying to stay upbeat. It’s almost a miniature, mainstream version of “Life is Beautiful.”

We also get a welcome dose of “Punisher’s” Jon Bernthal as a sheriff in a loving relationship with a pregnant wife (Medina Senghore), both of whom drip with woodsy know-how.

The standout, though, is honestly Little, who gives one of the great child-actor turns of recent years as he pairs with a Jolie performance that reminds us how good she can be. It’s incredible to think of a young kid knowing about evil, let alone schemes that involve corrupt public officials. Connor knows news people, but not necessarily public officials, will be his allies.

Connor knows all of this stuff, and thanks to Little and the screenplay, we believe that he knows all this stuff. He has lived more life in his few years than he should’ve had to. In a nice bonding moment by a campfire, Hannah admits she looks sad because she’s haunted by her past failure to save three boys Connor’s age from a fire. Connor says he watched his mom die of cancer, and Hannah realizes she can’t compete with this kid in a grief contest.

Haunting beauty

As this hauntingly beautiful-looking film – shot in New Mexico under Ben Richardson’s lens — comes to a conclusion with an effectively devastating forest fire, it might have some viewers wishing for more details about the villains’ scheme. I don’t know if that was ever the point, although I haven’t read the 2014 novel by Michael Koryta (also a co-writer on the film), and I admit it’s a controversial choice to hint at the wider conspiracy via a single scene with name actor Tyler Perry but not follow up.

I can see why Sheridan and his team abandoned the villains’ path, as that would mean a 2-hour movie and a different movie. I love that “TWWMD” is 100 minutes long, with its focus on the good guys.

Still, to set aside crisp explanations of the villains’ motivations in exchange for the heroes’ character journeys, you have to have damn good character journeys. “Those Who Wish Me Dead” has that, and on a disaster-flick scale, and without losing its grip on reality, and without seeming to try too hard.