A top-notch cast led by Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery play out a hair-raising real-life 1970s hostage situation in this blackly comedic thriller from Gus Van Sant.
All Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) wants is debt forgiveness, an apology and $5 million. Bullish about his vision for a new shopping mall, the Indianapolis businessman has taken on a hefty loan only to fall behind on the repayments. Convinced that he’s been duped by his mortgage brokers – a father–son duo played by Al Pacino (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, MIFF 2019) and Stranger Things’ Dacre Montgomery (Went up the Hill, MIFF 2025) – Tony abducts the younger man and rigs a shotgun to his head. His cracked quest for righteous revenge soon becomes a media spectacle, eagerly watched over by national TV crews and narrated by a local soul DJ (Colman Domingo, Sing Sing, MIFF 2024).
The first film by stalwart indie auteur Gus Van Sant since Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot (MIFF 2018) finds him in a paranoid 70s groove, harking back to landmark works of that era like Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon and Network in his fictionalised retelling of the 1977 kidnapping of Richard Hall. Just like those two “mad as hell” films, Dead Man’s Wire is a riveting tale trip-wired to a piquant social critique.
“Gus Van Sant is in top form with Dead Man’s Wire, a riveting true-crime dramatization [and] a timely, entertaining reflection on the way the offer of the American Dream often tends to be snatched back.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Unclassified 15+