Review of Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) by Jamess — 20 May 2021

Knowing Taylor Sheridan wrote some of the best dramatic thrillers of recent years, I was anticipating a smart and possibly twisty actioner, despite the generic looking trailer. Nope. Sheridan looks like he embraced the thrillers of the late 80s, early 90s, like The River Wild or Shoot To Kill, without improving on them.

So many cliches and tropes. Two bantering hitman. Check. Low level employee of some crimelord marked for assassination. Check. Hazardous worker (firefighter) dealing with past trauma. Check (causing nightmares that makes the person jolt out of sleep.

Double Check). Pre-teen who swears like a sailor. Check. Heroine who should be crippled from multiple injuries seems to be pretty much fine. Check. And so on and so on... The performances are good across the board.

Although Tyler Perry did appear in such a small role, it looks like he stopped by between taping episodes of Meet The Browns. One scene, in particular, drove me nuts. A character is hiding from an armed gunman behind a tree that is barely wider than the character themself.

In a sparsely wooded area during the forest fire finale. Why the gunman didn't just run up and shoot them...well..A film that you'll forget soon after.