Dead Man’s Wire
3½ stars (out of 4)
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo and Al Pacino
Rated: R for language throughout
Available: In theaters
Dead Man’s Wire seems the perfect picture for a United States where trust in core institutions is fading and a significant number of people viewed Luigi Mangione as a righteous vigilante. In case you missed it, people are angry, and many see our power structures as the enemy. But this isn’t a “now” problem. Americans have long distrusted politicians, financiers and media outlets, and director Gus Van Sant reminds us of this with an intense and beautifully acted drama based on a real-life crime.
The focus is on Anthony “Tony” Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård), a working-class Indianapolis man who took matters into his own hands after deciding Meridian Mortgage Company had undermined one of his real estate deals. Kiritsis marched into Meridian headquarters in February 1977, pulling a shotgun on President Richard “Dick” Hall (Dacre Montgomery) and marching him out of the building with the gun attached to his head using a dead man’s wire. The makeshift device was rigged so the gun would discharge if Hall attempted to flee or if Kiritsis fell, meaning any engagement by authorities could result in the death of the victim.
The actual story became a media sensation, and Van Sant gives viewers an intimate, fictionalized reading of events, where viewers come to know Tony and Dick through a series of exchanges that run from melancholy to frenetic. The movie is more than a two-hander, in that Van Sant gives significant time to characters beyond Kiritsis and Hall. The auxiliary players include a radio disc jockey named Fred Temple (Colman Domingo) and Hall’s father (Al Pacino). It’s worth noting that Temple was based on Fred Heckman, a real-life Indianapolis newsman who spoke with Kiritsis during the crisis. Domingo and Pacino are always delights, and that remains true even though liberties are taken with their portrayals.
Because Kiritsis became a hero only in the court of public opinion, Van Sant maintains a safe distance from the subject. But he also allows empathy. Viewers understand why the man is doing what he does and – even though they should disagree with his actions – it’s easy to identify with a desperate person pushed one step too far. The movie fails to demonstrate that there was never evidence that Hall or Meridian Mortgage cheated Kiritsis in any way. This is a major omission since some viewers are likely to use the film as their textbook rather than inspiration for further research. While Dead Man’s Wire isn’t necessarily great history, it is a fascinating movie, with Skarsgård and Montgomery delivering immensely powerful performances.
Screenwriter Austin Kolodney keeps things moving, even though most of what happens after the kidnapping is conversation. It takes a strong director and particularly good cast to make dialogue-heavy sequences play, even with a situation as dramatic as the one at hand.
Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester, Milk, Drugstore Cowboy) demonstrates why he’s had a storied career by cutting at just the right moments, allowing his characters to demonstrate who they are but never lingering on a series of events longer than necessary. The result is a timely picture built to keep viewers on the edge of their seats, while reminding them that some social problems are constants.
Author Bio:
Forrest Hartman is the chief film critic at Highbrow Magazine.
For Highbrow Magazine