Editor’s Note: Remember that 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino robbing a NYC bank and holding hostages? Freeline Media critic Mike Fried thinks a 2025 Gus van Sant crime thriller is just as worthy of finding a wide audience. Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
Dead Man’s Wire
4/5
The (based on a) true story of Tony Kiritsis’s 1977 hostage situation in Indianapolis starts when he has a meeting with a mortgage broker, M.L. Hall but is met instead by his son, Richard, because Hall is on vacation. Tony holds Richard hostage and wires a shotgun to Richard’s neck as a dead man’s switch. He believes that the Halls cheated him on profits from land he wanted to buy. He steals a police cruiser and him and his hostage go to Tony’s apartment, which is highly rigged. He wants restitution from ML, he wants no jail time and he wants an apology. And what plays out becomes a media circus.
In some ways, it reminds me of the documentary Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis, where the media made a bad situation worse.
What really makes this work — besides Gus Van Sant’s direction — is Arnaud Potier’s cinematography, which makes the film look like it was made in the 1970s. There was a 2018 documentary about this incident and Potier and Van Sant wisely use archival footage here.
And Van Sant has done a remarkable job on this film. Quite frankly, this is his best film since Milk (2008) and Good Will Hunting (1997). And he came to this project totally by accident. It was supposed to be Nic Cage being directed by Werner Herzog, but Cage’s commitment to Spider-Noir caused him to back out and Herzog didn’t want to make the movie without Cage.
Van Sant has a way of bringing out the best in his characters and he does so in the this film.
Bill Skarsgård gives his most fully realized performance as Tony Kiritsis. He is desperate — and in his desperation, he delivers a heartfelt yet very funny performance. It’s really a shame that this was the type of movie that was given short shrift in the theater, leading it to get overlooked at awards season. That’s true even the short scene when Tony learns that Richard drives to work in silence rather than listening to the radio, and he upbraids him, saying “You drive to work in silence? You fucking psycho!” It’s a funny moment among many funny moments. And Skarsgård plays it straight. He is a polite guy and even amidst a hostage situation he still has his manners. But he’s a smart guy who seems to have thought of everything.
It took me over a half hour to realize that the bearded detective who is first on scene and knows Tony from a cop bar they patronize was none other than Cary Elwes. With his gravelly voice, salt and pepper beard he disappears into his role. He plays midwestern so well.
Colman Domingo is Fred Temple, an Indianapolis Easy Listening disc jockey that Tony idolizes and who becomes embroiled in the affair when Tony demands to speak to him. He is dragged into the situation by the authorities — who Tony refuses to speak to — and reluctantly does so in order to keep Tony safe. Domingo gives strong Lynne Thigpen vibes.
Dacre Montgomery as Richard is terrific as the man held at gunpoint and scared out of his wits, especially after his prick of a father refuses to apologize and says this is what happens when you don’t make payments. He is visibly distraught when his dad refuses to apologize. And you can tell he’s being truthful to Tony when he says it’s difficult being ML’s son: “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows growing up.”
Myha’la is equally terrific as Linda Page, a reporter for the local television station, who is usually shunted off to human interest bullshit but who is around when the story breaks, so she runs with it.
Al Pacino, who filmed all of his scenes in one day, is exemplary as ML. He is a total prick. Despite being what he refers to himself as a god fearing man, he is anything but. When Tony threatens to shoot Richard in the face, ML’s response is to merely say he will mourn one of his sons.
And Pacino’s presence is key. This movie is a spiritual successor to Dog Day Afternoon and it even has a scene where someone calls Tony and tells him to waste the hostage, which happens in Pacino’s film.
It is an absolutely terrific film that just landed in the Netflix
WATCH IT!
4/5
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
