{"id":116473,"date":"2025-09-03T10:21:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116473\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T10:21:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:21:15","slug":"gus-van-sant-kidnapping-drama-is-limp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116473\/","title":{"rendered":"Gus Van Sant Kidnapping Drama Is Limp"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d was already in production when Luigi Mangione fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. But you\u2019d be forgiven for interpreting it as a reaction to those event<\/a>s. The film<\/a> \u2014 director Gus Van Sant<\/a>\u2019s first since \u201cDon\u2019t Worry, He Won\u2019t Get Far on Foot\u201d<\/a> in 2018 \u2014 takes place in the 1970s, another decade when dissent fueled by economic stagnation exploded into politically charged violence. But its sympathy for its aggrieved antihero feels very current.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cExploded\u201d can be taken literally here, as Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd) rigged his Indianapolis apartment with homemade munitions when he took his mortgage broker, Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), hostage there for 63 frozen hours in February 1977. This was in addition to the device that gives Van Sant\u2019s movie its name, a wire that was attached to the trigger of a shotgun on one end, and looped around Hall\u2019s head on the other. If Hall jerked too violently, let alone tried to run, the wire would pull the trigger, firing the shotgun Kiritsis had pointed at the back of Hall\u2019s head.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Zoey<\/a> \"A<\/a> <\/p>\n

At risk of spoiling well-documented (if somewhat memory-holed) historical events<\/a>, there are no \u201cScanners\u201d-style shots of exploding heads in \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire.\u201d The possibility feels very real in the magnificently tense opening scene, which counts down the minutes and seconds as Kiritsis takes Hall captive at his office and leads him several blocks through downtown Indianapolis with the titular device around his neck. Accompanied by Danny Elfman\u2019s jazzy score, the sequence feels genuinely dangerous, as cops and onlookers alike stand dumbfounded at Kiritsis\u2019 brazen gambit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The possibility resurfaces later on as well, in moments where Kiritsis\u2019 simmering resentment \u2014 he feels he\u2019s been cheated out of his own personal American Dream, via a complicated struggle over a plot of land in rural Indiana \u2014 is brought to a boil by police interference. On the whole, however, \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d has trouble maintaining suspense beyond that breathtaking opener. This weakness is partially baked into the story: Five days is a long time to hold your breath, and even Hall sleeps, albeit restlessly, over that time. The rest is a side effect of Van Sant\u2019s storytelling style.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d indulges in a clich\u00e9 seen in many films based on a true story, namely showing footage of real people alongside the actors playing them. We see this in the closing credits, which is understandable enough; it becomes an issue when the footage overlaps with the fictionalized events unfolding onscreen. This is especially noticeable with a subplot involving Linda Page (Myha\u2019la), an ambitious young news reporter usually sidelined to the ladies\u2019 luncheon beat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Page and her cameraman stumble onto the Kiritsis story very early on, and refuse to give it up once the higher-ups in the newsroom start paying attention as well. She serves as a sort of narrator, keeping the audience informed of new developments inside Kiritsis\u2019 apartment once the standoff truly begins. Her reports are accompanied by actual archival news footage narrated by an older white male anchor; these don\u2019t contradict Page\u2019s updates, but they do pull focus away from her and her story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This juxtaposition could be useful for illustrating Linda\u2019s struggle to be taken seriously as a Black woman in an industry dominated by white men, but \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d never quite gets there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

References to Kiritsis being a regular at a cop bar in Indianapolis, and therefore well known to officers like Detective Michael Grable (Cary Elwes), is another missed opportunity. We can infer that the police are treating him differently because he\u2019s \u201cone of them,\u201d but this thread also gets lost as the number of characters and details expands throughout the film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One peripheral character with enough gravity to keep the story in orbit is Fred Temple (Colman Domingo), a smooth-voiced morning radio DJ who serves as a reluctant, but sympathetic sounding board for the aggrieved kidnapper. (Kiritsis is a big fan, as we see in a cutaway shot to a promotional mug on his kitchen counter.) Temple keeps his perspective on Kiritsis\u2019 actions to himself; for the most part, he seems anxious about keeping his wife waiting at home. It\u2019s an everyman perspective that dovetails with Kiritsis\u2019 own, making Temple the most successful of several characters Van Sant uses to move the story forward.<\/p>\n

Temple is introduced at the very beginning of the film through a closeup of his mouth speaking into a microphone, a nod to the DJ-narrator in Walter Hill\u2019s \u201cThe Warriors.\u201d Although, again, it loses momentum as the film\u2019s scope widens, there\u2019s a brusque efficiency to the visual storytelling in \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d that calls back to \u201870s classics like \u201cThe Taking of Pelham One Two Three.\u201d The editing in particular has a pleasingly punchy no-bullshit feel about it, using juxtaposition to make its points cleanly and clearly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a hint of tongue-in-cheek irony in the way Van Sant nods to his \u201870s influences, as well as in the needle drops that are scattered throughout the film. (Kiritsis\u2019 burn-it-down radio rants are paired with \u201cThe Revolution Will Not Be Televised,\u201d for example.) Where Van Sant gets serious is in the film\u2019s incendiary final stretch, which seems to agree with many of the characters that Kiritsis is a folk hero.<\/p>\n

The film\u2019s only real villain is Al Pacino, doing a Colonel Sanders accent as Richard\u2019s father M.L. Hall, whose pitiless rigidity stands in for capitalism as a whole. The elder Hall\u2019s indifference toward his son\u2019s life shocks even his captor, prompting a bonding moment that softens the viewer\u2019s perceptions of both men. These scenes, which take place in Kiritsis\u2019 apartment midway through the siege, briefly pull \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d back into focus, clarifying its thesis about how the big guys prosper while the little guys get screwed.<\/p>\n

One does not hire Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd unless one is looking for a lanky, off-putting weirdo. But Skarsg\u00e5rd does a good job of making his character\u2019s frustration and rising panic grounded and relatable. This helps immensely when we get to the finale, which complicates the us-vs-them narrative. Ultimately, \u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d concedes that Kiritsis\u2019 violent actions had more negative effects than positive ones. But the man still had a point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Grade: B-<\/p>\n

\u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d premiered at the 2025 Venice<\/a> Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDead Man\u2019s Wire\u201d was already in production when Luigi Mangione fatally shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,64683,75,1554,64684,18296,4186],"class_list":["post-116473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dead-mans-wire","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-gus-van-sant","tag-venice","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}