Movie Review

Action and emotions carry Those Who Wish Me Dead through the fire

Even the most complicated action movies tend to have a singular focus. If you’re making a crime thriller, the action is about the crime. If you’re making a movie about firefighters, the action is about the danger of the fire. The new film Those Who Wish Me Dead divides its focus, trying to fit a bit about both of those worlds into its running time, and barely succeeding at making a coherent whole.

Angelina Jolie stars as Hannah, a wildland firefighter who’s been consigned to a fire tower watchpoint as she recovers from a traumatic recent experience. She and her group of firefighters are a close-knit bunch who are also tight with the local rural community, including Ethan (Jon Bernthal), a sheriff’s deputy who runs a wilderness survival school with his wife Allison (Medina Senghore).

Their isolated world soon collides with the criminal underground when Owen (Jake Weber) and his son Connor (Finn Little) come to town, hoping to find refuge with Ethan, Owen’s brother-in-law. They’re on the run from Jack (Aiden Gillen) and Patrick (Nicholas Hoult), two killers who are trying to prevent Owen from releasing damaging information about the people for whom they work.

Directed by Taylor Sheridan and written by Sheridan, Michael Koryta (who wrote the book on which the film is based), and Charles Leavitt, the film is a mixed bag of storytelling. Where the filmmakers succeed the most is establishing the bonds of the various relationships in the film.

In relatively short periods of time, the connection between Owen & Connor and Ethan & Allison become meaningful parts of the story. Hannah is shown to be an extremely empathetic character, something that helps her greatly as the film progresses. Heck, even the killer duo of Jack and Patrick have an unspoken link that is unusual in a world where people tend to only look out for themselves.

But the disparate parts of the story ultimately become a bit much for the film to handle. The crime part of the story never really makes sense, as they never say exactly what information Owen has or who employs Jack and Patrick. There’s a lot of innuendo and intrigue, including a random meeting with Arthur (Tyler Perry) that hints at a larger story that got edited out of the movie if only because having Perry show up for one scene doesn’t compute.

However, you don’t have to understand the story to get into the suspense of the third act of the film, which includes not just the killers menacing everybody in sight, but also a raging forest fire. Sheridan and his team stage almost all of these scenes well, even if the computer-generated fire fails to inspire the awe that it should.

The acting in the film is uniformly good, probably too good for the type of film it is. Jolie, despite a few over-the-top moments, remains a commanding screen presence. Bernthal and especially Senghore do a lot with relatively small roles. Little is likely to get a lot more work thanks to his nuanced performance. Gillen and Hoult are way overqualified for their respective roles, but the fact that they are elevates their characters to more than they might have been.

Those Who Wish Me Dead is not a film that will stand the test of time, but it’s a solidly entertaining action film with a number of compelling performances, much more than can be said about other recent films.

---

Those Who Wish Me Dead opens in theaters and on HBO Max on May 14.

Finn Little and Angelina Jolie in Those Who Wish Me Dead.

Finn Little and Angelina Jolie in Those Who Wish Me Dead

Photo by Emerson Miller

Finn Little and Angelina Jolie in Those Who Wish Me Dead.

Movie Review

Supergirl loses the sense of fun that Superman brought to DC Comics films

Milly Alcock in Supergirl

Photo courtesy of DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures

Milly Alcock in Supergirl.

The new Superman in 2025 brought with a renewed sense of optimism for, if not the concept of the comic book movie, then at least the DC Comics universe. After more than a decade of DC films that felt mostly creatively bankrupt, the leadership of James Gunn gave the story a sense of fun. That included the brief introduction of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, who’s now getting her own showcase in, naturally, Supergirl.

When we first met her in Superman, Supergirl was in rough shape, arriving at the Fortress of Solitude visibly inebriated. Nothing has changed at the beginning of this film, save for her aimlessly traveling around the universe with her rambunctious dog, Krypto. One of her random stops puts her in the same bar as Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is looking for help tracking down Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a group known as the Brigands after they brutally murdered her family.

Kara is initially loath to offer aid, but when Krem shoots a poison dart into Krypto while escaping, her motivation goes way up, especially since Krem holds the antidote. Kara, with Ruthye doggedly following her, uses every means available to her to find Krem, a journey that is hampered by galaxies having different colored suns than the one that gives her powers, the yellow sun.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, the film is a big step back in the fun category, not least because Supergirl is deep in her feelings for much of the film. Her personal trauma, which is detailed in occasional flashbacks, gives a reason for her depression, but fails to land fully. The story seems to want everyone to be sad, as it includes a child trafficking ring and multiple instances of families being murdered.

Milly Alcock and Krypto in Supergirl.Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

To try to counteract that downer material, the filmmakers give Supergirl many opportunities to show off her fighting skills. While still CGI-heavy, the action scenes contain enough of a semblance of reality that they feel exciting. Unfortunately, this is undercut by the inclusion of several slow-motion sequences, giving the impression that the filmmakers didn’t trust the actors to deliver the goods on a consistent basis.

Superman (David Corenswet) makes a handful of appearances in the film, and while his presence is welcome given how well the character came across in the previous movie, it also doesn’t allow Supergirl to become her own person. Almost everything she does is colored by either her cousin or her parents, and since her powers are identical to those of Superman, there is very little that makes her story unique aside from how she’s dealing with the fallout.

Alcock (House of the Dragon, Sirens) gives an appealing performance despite her character being drunk and/or moody most of the time. She definitely sells what Supergirl is going through, so if given a better story in a future film, she’s proven her capability. Schoenaerts makes for a pretty good villain, although he’s aided by a look that includes a face full of studs. Jason Momoa has a memorable supporting role as the bounty hunter Lobo, even if his character doesn’t add much to the story.

While not a full-on disaster, Supergirl does not continue the momentum that Superman started. With a story that’s more concerned with showing audiences death scenes than a hero saving people, the film doesn’t seem to understand the appeal of a character like Supergirl or how to make her someone audiences will return to over and over again.

---

Supergirl is now playing in theaters.

Loading...