It's hard to remember the last time Angelina Jolie played anything resembling a 'regular' person on screen.
So the sight of Jolie as a rough and tumble Montana firefighter – all safety goggles and high-vis – in this new action thriller is a little jarring, even if the work attire doesn't exactly hide her megawatt charisma.Based on a book by crime fiction author Michael Koryta, Those Who Wish Me Dead stars Jolie as Hannah Faber, a once-hotshot 'smokejumper' haunted by a past tragedy: a forest blaze that claimed the lives of three children she blames herself for failing to rescue.
Over in Florida, two mysterious assassins – father and son Jack and Patrick – are bumping off anyone with knowledge of what appears to be a major criminal conspiracy; whatever it is, it's big enough to necessitate blowing up the district attorney's house. A fake forest was created and set ablaze, with firefighters on hand to contain it. Jolie met them to learn about their work.
But Sheridan's script, co-written with Koryta and Charles Leavitt , is also riddled with hokey character work: there's Hannah troubled past, her rocky former relationship with sheriff Ethan, and his current partner Allison's convenient pregnancy – which somehow inspires a flash of sympathy in two killers who've been gunning down witnesses in cold blood.
I fail to see how this is ‘news’…
Based on our current culture of *only* allowing LGBTQ actors to play actual LGBTQ characters or minority voice actors to voice minority cartoons (see Apu).... Shouldn't a *real female firefighter* play this role?