Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) — Movies with ddash

A gritty, fast-paced movie about the intersection of badass assassins and smokejumpers which wreaks havoc on a small town during a deadly wildfire.

“A smokejumper haunted by her past guides a traumatized boy through lightning storms, wildfires, and rough terrain to save him from a pair of assassins.”

A forensic accountant whistleblower discovers assassins are after him and takes off, with his son, for his brother’s place, a long two-day drive to a small town within mountainous terrain.

The assassins are well funded, government connected, with the latest technology and resources. They determine where the accountant is going, take a private plane there, are met on the runway with a large vehicle filled with all of their needed weaponry and technology. These guys are professional, no excuses, over deliver, never leave witnesses.

The accountant, realizing he probably won’t survive, makes a copy of the evidence and gives it to his young son.

When the assassins run their car off the road near their destination, the already-shot father forces his son out of the car with the evidence, tells him to hide and not make any sound, and tells him “streams run to rivers, rivers run to towns, go find our family in town, you need to tell the media what was found.”

The car is then filled with high-powered ballistics that tear through the entire vehicle from the roadside above.

Angelina Jolie plays a seasoned smokejumper who is haunted by the image of three young boys perishing in a wildfire last year. She blames herself and has continuing nightmares about it.

The young son and Jolie’s character cross paths in the woods where he’s following a stream and she’s walking to a fire lookout tower.

Everything is very fast paced from this point on. The assassins keep causing problems and leaving bodies as they try to force everyone that might know something to provide them with info. They don’t take “no” for an answer.

The struggles involve many people from this small town who don’t know what hit them. The assassins also set a fast-spreading wildfire to distract and delay others.

We see the tenacity and survival training of certain members of the community as things unfold.

Towards the end, the wildfire has grown and starts to outrun and surround everyone who is in the woods no matter what they are trying to do or get away from. Eventually, surviving the fast-running fire is all that really matters. You don’t know who is going to survive.

Jolie’s character finally comes face-to-face with her demon when the wildfire catches up to her and flows over her. This reminded me of the scene near the end of the movie “Twister” when Helen Hunt’s character, a storm chaser, finally confronts the “soul” of an F5 tornado which tore her family apart as a child.

This movie is quite gritty and fast-paced after the initial background stories have been told.

… ddash likes this movie!

Movie Details

• Those Who Wish Me Dead, 2021, R, 1h 39m
• Cast: Angelina Jolie, Finn Little, Jon Bernthal, Nicholas Hoult, Aidan Gillen, Jake Weber, Medina Senghore
• Genres: Thriller Movies, Movies Based on Books
• Thriller, Twists & Turns, Deadly Disaster

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