“Dead Man’s Wire” is a Shotgun Blast Waiting to Blow
It’s been seven long years since Gus Van Sant was in the feature film director’s chair. Perhaps best known for My Own Private Idaho and Good Will Hunting, Van Sant’s new film, Dead Man’s Wire, is a historical crime drama. The film premiered out of competition at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival and later played the Toronto and Chicago International Film Festivals. Van Sant’s return to the big screen is a lush period piece with that sense of anger that hasn’t died.
Dead Man’s Wire takes place over the course of roughly 63 hours in 1977 Indianapolis. A man, Tony Kiritis (Bill Skarsgård), drives to an appointment at a mortgage company. Upon parking, he pulls a long cardboard box out of the car and heads into the building. Tony greets the woman at the front desk and asks to speak with M. L. Hall (Al Pacino), but learns he’s on vacation in Florida. Instead, Tony is greeted by M. L.’s son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery), who assures Tony that he’ll be able to help. The two go to Richard’s office, where Tony opens the box. Inside is a sawed-off shotgun rigged with a dead man’s line. Tony loops a wire around Richard’s neck and tied to the shotgun trigger, then around Tony’s neck. If Richard tries to run away, it will pull the trigger, killing him. If Tony is shot by police, the same effect. Tony calls the police to inform them of his hostage plans and asks for immunity, the $5 million he believes the mortgage company cheated him out of, and, most importantly, an apology.
Row K Entertainment
There’s a pulsating anger running through Dead Man’s Wire that is urgently modern. Tony is not the first person to be cheated by a corporation, and, unfortunately, he will not be the last. Dead Man’s Wire stays close to the true story of Tony and the standoff between him and the police. He’s immensely apologetic to Richard throughout the film, adamant that he doesn’t want to do this. That he’s simply a man at the end of his rope, desperate to take back any sort of control.
Tony got a loan from Meridian Mortgage for a real estate development. He says he had companies interested in building on his land, but that M. L. and Richard dissuaded them from working with Tony in the hope they could buy the property from Tony when he was forced to default. More than the money he feels he’s owed, Tony wants an apology. Looking deeper than that, what Tony really wants is to be treated with a sense of humanity. To be looked at as a human being. This is touched on in the first few minutes of the film as Tony comments on the fact that the woman at the front desk is new. She’s taken aback, surprised that someone noticed. Dead Man’s Wire highlights the fact that the world teeters on a razor-thin balance of respect. What a different world we’d live in if we treated everyone with dignity and kindness; if decisions were made for the betterment of all people, rather than the select rich few.
It’s hard not to see similarities between the story of Tony and individuals in the present day who are frustrated with the way companies have stacked their businesses against the everyday person. Look at the state of healthcare in the United States. Medicine prices reach new heights and insurance companies fight tooth and nail to avoid paying for life-saving care. A scene in Dead Man’s Wire is a phone call between M. L. and his son while Richard is still held hostage. It’s utterly infuriating to hear the hoops M. L. jumps through to make sense of his choices. What’s he supposed to do? Cut some guy who’s behind on payments some slack? He’s a businessman! This scene solidifies the ire that’s bubbling up within Tony and the way the mortgage company only looks out for itself.
Dead Man’s Wire is a slick little throwback thriller anchored in the darkly comedic, offbeat dynamic of Skarsgård and Montgomery. It’s reminiscent of ’70s crime dramas that are dirty and gritty, but still have a ton of style. The film is framed by news reports of this standoff, and these little breaks in the action provide a fuller picture of the early rumblings of the 24/7 news cycle. Dead Man’s Wire walks a tightrope of tension that is a direct line to our current disillusionment with the world around us.
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