Those Who Wish Me Dead

I have been looking forward to Those Who Wish Me Dead for months because it looked like an intense action thriller.  I saw it last night and, while I did enjoy it, I was expecting more from director Taylor Sheridan.  Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) is a smoke jumper for the National Forest Service stationed in the wilderness of Montana.  She is suffering from PTSD after a recent fire because she misjudged the direction of the wind which resulted in the deaths of three young boys and she feels responsible.  After failing a psychological evaluation, she is demoted to keeping watch at an isolated fire tower along the Continental Divide.  Owen Casserly (Jake Weber) is a forensic accountant who has discovered a vast government conspiracy.  When he learns that the D.A. working on the case has been assassinated, he correctly assumes that the assassins (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) are coming for him next and flees with his son Connor (Finn Little).  The assassins predict that Owen will be trying to reach his brother-in-law Ethan Sawyer (Jon Bernthal), a sheriff in Montana, and ambush him on the road.  Owen is killed but not before he gives Connor the information to implicate many people in power.  Connor is stranded in the wilderness but Hannah finds him and vows to help him as a way to atone for the deaths of the other boys.  However, she must contend with the ruthless assassins who want Connor dead in one direction and a deadly forest fire in the other.  I always enjoy flawed characters seeking redemption but Hannah is very thinly developed (as are most of the other characters in this movie) and the narrative relies more on things implied rather than things explained which becomes frustrating because there are so many unanswered questions.  Jolie gives a kick-ass performance but I was absolutely riveted by Little (I loved him in Storm Boy) and Medina Senghore, who plays Ethan's pregnant wife, has several stand up and cheer moments with the assassins.  The action sequences are an absolute adrenaline rush and the images of the fire destroying everything in its path are strangely compelling.  I liked this movie but it definitely feels like a throw-back to the disaster movies of the past in which the action supersedes plot and character development.  See it for the spectacle but don't expect much more.