THOSE WHO WISH ME DEAD
*CUT TO THE CHASE*NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy
The film opens with a team of smokejumpers descending down into the scene of a raging forest fire. The team does their best to work through the fire and recover lives, but due to an incorrect wind reading, the team is trapped as the flames spread uncontrollably, claiming several lives. Team leader Hannah Faber (Angelina Jolie) wakes up from this, as it was a nightmare, but one she already lived through.
In Fort Lauderdale, hitmen brothers Jack and Patrick Blackwell (Aidan Gillen and Nicholas Hoult) enter the home of a district attorney under the guise of being there to check the gas. After killing the man and his family, they rig the house to blow as they move onto their next targets. Hearing the news is Owen Casserley (Jake Weber), and the DA was his boss. Owen gets his son Connor (Finn Little) and heads out. Connor realizes something is wrong when Owen doesn’t take him to school, but Owen insists that he did the right thing despite looking scared.
Hannah and her colleagues are at a ceremony for new smokejumpers, along with Sheriff Ethan Sawyer (Jon Bernthal). After the ceremony, the crew gathers for drinks before Hannah does a stunt off a truck involving a parachute. After gaining enough speed, she opens it and floats away until she goes down a slight hill and is arrested by Ethan. He drives her far enough until he can let her go, and he thinks that she is doing stunts like that for a more personal reason.
The Blackwells go to the Casserley house to find it empty. Jack finds Owen’s laptop while Patrick goes through files to determine where he may be headed.
Ethan goes home to his pregnant wife Allison (Medina Senghore). They are contacted by Owen, who is his brother-in-law, and asks for Ethan’s help in keeping him and Connor safe. Owen drives them to a motel for the night, where he writes down his personal secrets for Connor to give to the news and authorities, but to never read for himself.
Hannah goes to the lookout tower where she works now. She talks to a colleague over the radio and expresses her guilt over the incident, as the fire not only killed some of her teammates but also three boys who were trapped in the middle of it all. Hannah thinks that because she read the wind wrong, it’s her fault that they are dead, but her colleague tries to assure her otherwise. When she returns to the tower, lightning begins to strike the area. Hannah attempts to climb down just before the tower is struck, but she falls to the ground and is knocked unconscious.
Owen and Connor continue moving, but the Blackwells corner them and shoot their car off the road. They crash down a hill, and Owen gives Connor his written statements before telling him to hide and reminding him he loves him. Connor hides as the Blackwells go down the hill. Owen revs his engine to divert attention away from Connor, and the Blackwells finish him off. A woman stops by to survey the accident, but Jack shoots her in the head and moves her car off the road before he and Patrick head back out. They hear on the news that the only bodies found were Owen and the woman, but not Connor.
After Hannah wakes up, she finds Connor wandering alone in the woods. Although he is rude and attempts to fight her off, she lets him know that the nearest town is too far for him to go off on his own, so he sticks with her for help. She takes him up to the tower until they figure out who to contact.
The Blackwells report to their employer, Arthur Philip (Tyler Perry). He is aware that Connor is still alive, and knows that this means he can still bring the evidence against them to the press, so he orders Jack and Patrick to find the boy and finish him. In order to lure him out, Jack takes several road flares and tosses them into the woods to start a fire. Ethan spots the smoke in the distance as it begins to spread.
The Blackwells make it to the Sawyer home and pose as FBI agents. Allison knows something is wrong and tries to keep them out, but they barge in and attack her. Patrick threatens her with a hot fire poker unless she tells them anything she can about getting closer to finding Connor. Allison lies and says that Ethan has Connor, so she calls him and pretends to ask about him, but Patrick knows that she tried to use a code word with Ethan and tries to shoot. She grabs a spray can and uses the fire in the fireplace as a flamethrower to get the Blackwells away from her. She escapes the house with a rifle. Ethan later finds the brothers at his house and exchanges fire with them, but the Blackwells overpower him and take him captive.
Hannah guides Jake through the field at night when lightning starts to strike again. They start running, but Hannah is lightly struck before managing to get herself back up. They stop to rest and light a campfire, where Hannah talks about the incident to him. Connor also mentions how he watched his mom die from cancer, so he understands how she feels about watching people die. They soon come across the fire and have to take a different path to safety. They make their way back to the tower.
The Blackwells try to force Ethan to help them track Connor, but he defies them and fights them, only to be overpowered again. They take him at gunpoint in the direction of the tower, where Hannah and Connor spot them coming. Connor identifies the brothers as his dad’s killers. They send Ethan up to the tower to find Connor, but he and Hannah are hidden. When Patrick spots Ethan talking, they open fire on the tower. Ethan is hit but he helps Hannah and Connor get out safely.
Jack and Patrick split up, with Jack coming across Allison again. They shoot at each other, but Allison succeeds in hitting Jack. She approaches him to finish him with a shot to the head. She then goes to be with Ethan up in the tower.
The fire is now raging out of control and leaves Hannah and Connor with little escape options. As she is telling him what to do to get to safety, they are found by Patrick. Connor hides while Hannah attempts to fight Patrick, but he starts beating her down. Connor comes out so that Patrick will not hurt Hannah, but as Patrick approaches the boy, Hannah swings at him with a pick axe and wounds him severely enough to bring him down. The flames grow wilder, and Hannah leaves Patrick to burn to death while she and Connor run down a hill and into the river to avoid being consumed by the fire.
In the morning, the fire has gone out, leaving most of the forest burnt badly. Ethan has died from his wounds, but some of the other smokejumpers recover Hannah, Connor, and Allison. News crews and medics arrive on the scene. Connor tells Hannah that he has nowhere to go, but she promises to help him figure it out. She takes him to the crew, where he will expose Arthur, and the smokejumpers do what they can to salvage the forest.
Veteran smokejumper Hannah Faber feels a great deal of guilt from a previous mission that left some of her crew and three boys dead in a raging forest fire after a bad wind reading. She comes across a boy named Connor Casserley, whose father Owen was murdered by hitmen brothers Jack and Patrick Blackwell under orders from their boss Arthur Philip due to Owen and his district attorney boss having evidence against Arthur. Hannah promises to help Connor to safety, but the Blackwells set fire to the forest to lure Connor out.
Sheriff Ethan Sawyer and his wife Allison also encounter the Blackwells, but they hold their own against the brothers. Ethan is mortally wounded when the Blackwells find him talking to Hannah in the fire detector tower, and they split up to go after them. Allison kills Jack while Hannah fights Patrick and leaves him wounded from a pick axe before leaving him to burn to death in the growing fire. Hannah and Connor manage to escape the fire.
After the fire dies out, other smokejumpers arrive to rescue Hannah, Connor, and Allison, while Ethan succumbs to his wounds. News crews arrive so that Connor can present his father's evidence to them and help put Arthur away. Hannah also promises to help Connor however she can now that his future looks uncertain.