Taylor Sheridan’s R-Rated Neo-Western Those Who Wish Me Dead Is Leaving Netflix

Before creating the Yellowstone franchise and the series Landman for Paramount, writer Taylor Sheridan worked on action thrillers including Sicario and Hell or High Water. He has also directed three films: the 2011 horror film Vile, the neo-Western crime drama Wind River, and Those Who Wish Me Dead.

Those Who Wish Me Dead stars Angelina Jolie as a wildland firefighter caught up in a deadly pursuit. Netflix lists the film as leaving the service on Dec. 1, so Nov. 30 is the last day to watch it there.

Based on Michael Koryta’s novel of the same name, Sheridan’s thriller follows Connor (Finn Little), a boy who witnesses a murder and flees through the Montana wilderness with smokejumper Hannah Faber (Jolie). Nicholas Hoult and Aidan Gillen play the assassins hired to kill Connor.

The film also features familiar faces from Sheridan’s other work. Jon Bernthal, who appeared in Sicario and Wind River, plays Ethan Sawyer, a Park County deputy sheriff and Connor’s uncle. James Jordan, who appeared in Wind River and Yellowstone, also stars. Tory Kittles, who worked with Sheridan on Sons of Anarchy, is in the cast as well.

What is Those Who Wish Me Dead about?

Polygon’s review of Those Who Wish Me Dead describes the film’s setup:

After she misread a fire a year ago, resulting in the deaths of three boys and a failed psych evaluation, the still-traumatized Hannah has left team leadership behind. Her days now include drinking and joking around with a protective (all-male) circle of fellow smoke-jumpers. […] Her ex-boyfriend, Park County Sheriff Ethan Sawyer (Bernthal), is worried about her risky behavior […]. She’s unapologetically self-destructive, so he hopes a summer spent alone in a remote fire tower, watching for signs of forest fires, lightning strikes, or other dangerous phenomena, will do her some good.

In her 2021 review, critic Roxana Hadadi called Jolie the film’s “saving grace.”

“Amid the paper-thin plot, stilted script, inartful editing, and imbalanced character development, Jolie stands unblemished,” Hadadi wrote. “She isn’t the only good thing about the otherwise rote Those Who Wish Me Dead, but she doesn’t have much competition, either.”

Other critics were more positive. Those Who Wish Me Dead has a 63% Tomatometer score based on 223 reviews and an 86% audience score. The film opened in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously in May 2021 and earned $19.1 million at the box office.

Sheridan’s next major project is an adaptation of Activision’s Call of Duty franchise. He is teaming up with director Peter Berg, whose films include the modern military dramas The Kingdom and Lone Survivor.

Source: Polygon