It’s no surprise that writer-director Taylor Sheridan was drawn to Michael Koryta’s 2014 novel Those Who Wish Me Dead. Like much of Sheridan’s own work, Koryta’s thriller merges its requisite suspense with a uniquely American ethos. Koryta wastes little time setting up his premise: a boy witnesses a murder and is subsequently sent to Park County, Montana where he’ll be secretly protected by a local survival guide. Those Who Wish Me Dead plays out like an expertly crafted game of cat and mouse, embellished by its ruggedly gorgeous setting and ruggedly driven characters. For Koryta, like Sheridan, America is a beautiful country not simply because of its impressive landscapes, but because of people like protagonists Ethan Sawyer and Hannah Faber, people who squeeze everything they can out of their majestic surroundings.
Fortunately, Sheridan’s adaptation of Koryta’s novel is proof of the patriotic symbiosis between the filmmaker and the author, even if it is a surprising departure from the source material. I should acknowledge early on that I am a huge fan of Koryta’s novel. A page-turner of the highest order, Those Who Wish Me Dead stands as one of the greatest thrillers of the previous decade. Sheridan obviously held similar reverence for the text, but his script — a collaboration with Koryta — bizarrely circumvents some of Koryta’s most impressive and shocking narrative maneuvers, instead introducing several relationships amongst the film’s several characters. Survival guide Ethan (Jon Bernthal) is now a sheriff, and young Connor (Finn Little) is his nephew. Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) — a firetower observer who inadvertently becomes responsible for Connor’s safety — is Ethan’s ex-girlfriend. Such changes are likely necessitated by Hollywood cinema’s obsession with narrative clarity, wherein motivation and causality are paramount, but they feel ill-advised nonetheless. Whereas Koryta’s novel is a story about the dangers of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Sheridan’s film is about actions and their rippling effect on others. Both approaches retain value, but Sheridan’s take on Those Who Wish Me Dead can’t help but feel trapped between the tight, 90s-era thriller all but promised by its source material, and the complex genre interrogation that has become Sheridan’s trademark over the years.
Of course, I aim to review Sheridan’s film independent of the novel that inspired it. This is not a review of Koryta’s book, but it might not be a review of Sheridan’s movie either. This is a review of an experience, part of which I’d like to share before further evaluating Those Who Wish Me Dead.
I first ventured to see the film on Friday, May 14th, the day of its release. The outing marked my first return to my local movie theater, which had only reopened a week prior. Popcorn, candy, and soda in tow (you only get to triumphantly return to the cinema post-pandemic once), I sat in my assigned recliner seat and awaited the start of the film. Then, I waited some more. I waited, and waited, and waited. There was only one other person in the theater, several rows in front of me, and I wondered if he too was confused as to why the projector still hadn’t booted up several minutes after the film’s intended starttime. Before I could call down to him, the theater’s general manager entered the auditorium.
That day marked the first time the projector had been used in over a year. Upon starting up, it instantly burned out. My fellow stranger and I received a refund, as well as an invitation to view any other current showing for free. Those Who Wish Me Dead would start up in 45 minutes in the auditorium next door, but neither the stranger nor I had the flexibility in our schedule to wait around. I suffered through the mercifully short runtime of Spiral: From The Book of Saw, slurped up my soda, and drove home, but not before having a brief conversation with the only other person to miss out on a screening of Those Who Wish Me Dead that day.
I never even got his name. I remember how he dressed, however. He wore both a cardigan and a basketball jersey. He wore a green flat-brimmed hat, and black compression sleeves down each of his four limbs. A black scarf covered his face in lieu of a mask, and several gold chains draped down over his chest. As his eclectic wardrobe might suggest, he spoke with a fiery passion. He explained how he wanted to see this movie so badly. He has a Regal Unlimited subscription, and tries to see a movie at our local theater at least twice a week. He mostly enjoys relaxing in a cool air-conditioned auditorium, but every once in a while a movie truly catches his eye.
“I must have seen Tenet at least 15 times,” he said. We both gushed over Nolan’s latest mind-bender, and lamented the film’s troubled legacy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. We vowed to watch Those Who Wish Me Dead later that night via HBO Max, disappointed that we likely wouldn’t experience it in theaters. Soon, he had to go, never to be seen again.
Or so I thought.
The next day, I was pumping gas at a local Wawa, at least 15-20 minutes away from the theater. I was listening to a podcast — You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes — about the indescribable pleasure of chance encounters like the one I had just the day before. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my eclectic acquaintance. Then, as I pulled out of the gas station and made a left onto the freeway, a pedestrian entered the crosswalk. I recognized him immediately. He wore a cardigan over a basketball jersey. He wore a flat-brimmed hat. He wore compression sleeves on all four limbs, and gold chains draped down over his chest. I wanted to honk, to lower my window and shout. But I didn’t know his name. I barely even saw his face! But as he bobbed his head to the music in his ears, I recognized the fiery passion with which he spoke about Tenet and Those Who Wish Me Dead and the air-conditioning at our local cinema. No doubt, it was the stranger from the cinema. I waited for him to pass, and drove on, replaying our conversation over and over in my head.
That night, as I finally sat down to watch Those Who Wish Me Dead, I thought about my new friend. I imagined his reaction to several moments throughout the film, and even regretted my decision to watch Sheridan’s neo-Western on my own. Of course, there’s a certain irony in that feeling. After all, I went to see the film in theaters alone. I would have watched it alone, and may have never interacted with the lone other individual in the theater. But now, my relationship with the film feels inextricably tied to my distant relationship with this stranger whom I will likely never meet again. Those Who Wish Me Dead may have been a solitary experience for me, and yet it feels like one of 2021’s most communal works of cinema.
When Warner Bros. first announced its decision to stream the entirety of its 2021 catalog on HBO Max, the most immediate concern rested with major blockbusters like Dune and Godzilla vs. Kong, and understandably so. And yet, of the films released on HBO Max thus far in 2021, Those Who Wish Me Dead feels like the film that suffers the most from this new release model. Sheridan’s adaptation was simply made for the theater, where viewers like my sleeved-up companion can scream and cheer at the film’s high-octane setpieces. A particularly crowded theater would likely suit Those Who Wish Me Dead best, but that remains an understandably distant dream for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the film is too suspenseful and too fiery (literally) to experience in bed with a laptop. Sheridan designed his latest project for an audience, and viewers would be wise to make themselves part of one, whether that be in their local cinema or with family and friends at home.
Indeed, Those Who Wish Me Dead — imperfections and all — is everything a movie should be. With Angelina Jolie in a lead role, the film already functions as the kind of star vehicle that drove the box office in previous decades. Jolie is predictably excellent, even if her celebrity threatens to outweigh the humility Sheridan hopes to inject in his every character. The writer-director’s love for Westerns is evident throughout his body of work, and Those Who Wish Me Dead is no exception in terms of form. Wide sweeping shots establish the film’s grand setting as almost otherworldly, a character unto itself. Characters rattle off nature and survival factoids like it’s common knowledge, like anyone who doesn’t know or — even worse — doesn’t care about such things is partaking in the lowest kind of ignorance. A relationship with the natural world is assumed in Those Who Wish Me Dead, and — spoiler alert — lacking such a connection with your surroundings is sure to spell your undoing. It can be difficult to draw the dividing line between bravado and modesty in Sheridan’s works. Films like Sicario and Hell or High Water unpack such American swagger so as to highlight the toll taken by America’s drug war along the Mexican border, or the country’s outdated dependence on oil and natural gas. But Those Who Wish Me Dead feels oddly content foregoing Sheridan’s previous preoccupation, and operating as the kind of superficial fare that finds its way to the summer box office year after year. The film remains highly enjoyable even in spite of its simplicity, but one can’t help but worry that the luster of Sheridan’s first several efforts is starting to wear off, particularly considering the mundanity of his other recent script, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse.
To Sheridan’s credit, Those Who Wish Me Dead is not entirely lacking in subtext. Even as his characters wax on about how to best predict thunderstorms or properly track hikers’ footprints, Sheridan considers what it truly means to be connected to one’s environment. Ethan and his supervising Sheriff (Boots Southerland) sit down at a local diner, where Ethan criticizes his boss’ choice of meal. The Sheriff is eating a steak, and not a particularly appetizing one. Ethan doesn’t “eat that crap” while the Sheriff acknowledges he might have “rode this little bull back in the 70s.” I wouldn’t quite credit Sheridan with advocating for veganism — he has faced criticism from PETA for his treatment of cows on the set of his TV series Yellowstone — but he is at least imploring us to remain aware of the connected nature of our environment, lest we grow complacent instead. Moments later, the Sheriff’s assistant taps him on the shoulder and asks if he would like to field an incoming call from his wife. “Absolutely not,” he responds. It’s a rather odd and unsettling moment, probably even unnecessary, but it gains greater clarity when the Sheriff later becomes the first casualty in Park County of deliciously dry assassins Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) and Patrick Blackwell (Aiden Gillen). Connor’s father Owen (Jake Weber) — not a character in Koryta’s novel — expresses similar disregard or distrust for the natural world, at one point urging his son to back away from a friendly horse. Like the Sheriff, Owen dies at the hands of the Blackwells, launching Connor on his journey through the backwoods of Montana.
The Blackwells have a slightly more complicated relationship with their surroundings. Their military training grants them a certain degree of survival skills, but their fixation on completing their mission places them in the crossfires of just about everyone in town. Either brilliantly or bizarrely (I am still trying to figure out which), Sheridan never quite identifies the Blackwells’ objective, nor does he explain what it is that made Owen and Connor into the brothers’ prime targets. All we know for certain is that Owen, a forensic accountant, came across some information that the Blackwells and their boss Arthur (Tyler Perry) do not want getting out. Owen’s revelation cost the Fort Lauderdale DA and his family their lives, and Owen suggests the information could implicate several different politicians. He asks Connor to deliver the findings to a local news station, believing this approach to be the only possible route to the boy’s salvation. Is Sheridan rejecting the politico-media complex, and instead elevating the integrity of the cowboy lifestyle? Or is he redirecting our attention towards isolated communities like Park County, MT, where the shady dealings of the ruling class become dangerously distant from day-to-day life? The Blackwells’ clean-up duty begins in Florida (perhaps even a certain former president and current Florida resident could be implicated?) and ends in Montana. Whatever it is that caused so much bloodshed nearly 2600 miles apart is proof of an ever-evolving America, one in which ignorance and complacency could be lethal. Perhaps a simple return to our roots is in order, or perhaps we all need to tune in to our local news and find out what we’re eating a bit more often.
In the wake of Those Who Wish Me Dead, it seems writer-director Taylor Sheridan and his unique brand of neo-Western may be in need of a tire change sooner rather than later, but that doesn’t stop him from delivering some of 2021’s most gripping thrills thus far. Those Who Wish Me Dead is this year’s first truly great reason to return to your local theater, which is just about the best praise a film could receive in our current moment. Its performances are solid and its suspense is top-notch. If nothing else, the film’s forest fire looks really, really, really cool. With its colorful array of oranges and yellows and reds, what more could a film really need?
