Butler's Cinema Scene

THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD” My rating: B- (HBO Max)

80 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Insubstantial but nevertheless satisfying, Taylor Sheridan’s “Those Who Wish Me Dead” reacquaints us with Angelina Jolie in action heroine mode.

At age 45 Jolie has more gravitas than in her Lara Croft/”Salt”/”Mr. and Mrs. Smith” heyday. So while she might not retain all the physicality of those earlier incarnations, she compensates for it with an inner strength that transcends the overworked action tropes.

Here she plays Hannah, a professional firefighter working Montana’s deep woods. Drinking and carousing with her rugged peeps she’s the good ol’ tough gal. Inside, though, she’s struggling with the emotional fallout of a fatal conflagration…the ghastly incident hinged on an unpredictable change in wind direction, but Hannah blames herself.

Which is why for the current fire season she’s been assigned to a lookout tower situated on such a remote ridge that it can only be reached on foot. (I dunno…maybe they used helicopters to bring in all those girders.) This assignment is meant to keep her safe — physically and mentally — until she can return to normal duty.

Be assured that the screenplay (by Sheridan, Michael Koryta and Charles Leavitt) doesn’t allow her much rest.

Across the country in Florida, a forensic accountant (Jake Weber) realizes that his poking around in a vast government conspiracy has put his life — and that of his young son Connor (Finn Little) — in jeopardy. A couple of shadowy black op types (Aidan Gillen, Nicholas Hoult) are eliminating prosecutors — and their families — pursuing a massive corruption case.

Now they’re after the numbers cruncher.

The chase leads them to Big Sky Country, where the father and son once vacationed at a survival camp run by a local lawman (Jon Berthal) and his wife (Medina Senghore). Their plan is to disappear into the wilds with the help of these knowledgable backwoodsmen.

You can guess where this is going.

Next thing you know, Hannah finds poor little Finn wandering the woods and her maternal instincts kick in. The killers show up to threaten the cop and his very pregnant wife. And then there’s a manmade forest fire that threatens to consume everybody.

Sheridan’s career has concentrated on finding new ways to tell stories about today’s West (“Hell or High Water,” “Wind River,” “Sicario” and its sequel, the hit TV show “Yellowstone”), balancing the grandeur of the great outdoors with the moral ambiguities of the modern world.

“Those Who Wish Me Dead” (an intriguing but meaningless title) pretty much scuttles the deep musings and sticks to generating suspense. It’s only skin deep, but the skin is okay.

The film basically gives us three couples: Hannah and the kid, who develop a mutual dependency (shades of “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”!); the cop and his wife (the latter, despite her pregnancy, a bad ass with a rifle or blade), and the two killers, a couple of businesslike professionals who nevertheless find time to bitch about how their mission is undermanned and underfunded. Quinn’s character has a recurring comic refrain about hating the woods.

The results aren’t particularly memorable, but provide a couple of hours of solid diversion. I’ll take it.

| Robert W. Butler