In a post-Luigi Mangione era, a film like Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire may resonate far more than it would have had the Good Will Hunting filmmaker released it before the events of December 4th, 2024. Of course, the events depicted (or, more aptly, recreated) in Van Sant’s pressure-cooker hostage thriller don’t have any relation to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, yet the public perception of both Tony Kiritsis (portrayed by Bill Skarsgård) and Mangione seems to contain many similarities.
Discussion
While Kiritsis did not kill the person he held hostage at gunpoint—mortgage broker Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), son of Meridian Mortgage proprietor M.L. Hall (Al Pacino)—the anger he had against the system, as well as subsequent public support for his acts, is a chilling mirror to what’s currently unfolding with the twenty-seven-year-old murder suspect. It might not have been Van Sant’s intention, but there is no denying Dead Man’s Wire will inevitably be compared to what’s happening in our “interesting times” rather than simply showcasing to audiences a baffling story they might or might not have heard of.
Tony Kiritsis
It’s a shame, then, that Van Sant’s treatment of Kiritsis’s kidnapping of Hall is incredibly bog-standard and somewhat forgettable, even if Skarsgård locks us in to watch from the minute he appears on screen, in media res, until its bone-chilling (and rather darkly funny) final scene. The Skarsgård acting family may be extensive, but there’s no denying Bill’s talents as someone who can add tons of texture and lived-in anguish to each of his complex on-screen antagonists. Unlike Pennywise the Clown or Count Orlok, though, Tony Kiritsis isn’t a monster, or at least this is what he attempts to perceive himself as.
He’s just an ordinary guy who sadly got screwed over by the rich and powerful (like many in society have) and is now taking matters into his own hands to get the money he lost back, and a public apology from M.L. Hall, who even refuses him the satisfaction of a victory. As irredeemable as the act of kidnapping someone at gunpoint is, Kiritsis positions himself as a hero and a savior of middle-class America, who might have been promised a dream by people willing to support them, but had their aspirations crushed when the ones who backed them filled their pockets and left them behind to fend for themselves.
Kiritsis thinks he will get away from this kidnapping scot-free if all his demands are met. Of course, this is not the case, but I never would have predicted in a million years how this story would conclude. If you haven’t heard of the man (as this critic hadn’t before seeing the movie), then it’s best you don’t look him up and see this film blind.
Skarsgård’s Portrayal
Dead Man’s Wire might be Van Sant’s most pedestrian effort aesthetically, with each shot from cinematographer Arnaud Potier emulating the look and feel of an HBO telefilm rather than a production made for the big screen. Still, it’s at least moderately compelling enough to warrant a commendation. Most of it is due to Skarsgård’s ability to navigate complex emotions and make us see Kiritsis’ side of the story, perhaps even encouraging audience sympathy for the guy, even though what he’s doing is, in any circumstance, completely unacceptable.
When he locks in and lets the audience know that this performance might be his best yet, we, in turn, are encouraged to see how Kiritsis will get out of a predicament he created, as he crazily believed he’d somehow be able to get away with kidnapping because, to him, he was giving America a service and was “a goddamned hero.” Many might even relate to the guy, and you wouldn’t be in the wrong, either. What he does is wrong, sure. However, when all of his issues resonate with the heart and soul of the country, and as long as no one gets hurt, who can blame him?
The Supporting Cast
Van Sant’s filmmaking mostly hampers the whole thing, as he captures this story in a pedestrian way, failing to excavate the event’s surface many side characters, including Myha’la’s Linda Page or Colman Domingo’s Fred Temple—important people whose significance to the broader event can’t be overstated—are painfully underused and act as mere figures outside of Kiritsis’s home, where he held Richard hostage for over sixty hours before a plot was made for his arrest. We get a sense of how that plot was enacted, but not enough to feel like an integral part of the whole story. There are far too many on-the-nose needle drops, many of them we have heard before in recent films such as Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. They add nothing to the film’s tension or even enhance the finished film’s quality.
And Al Pacino—barely in the film, albeit given the most important task of delivering the film’s most important monologue because the impact he will have in the picture will be long-lasting—painfully misses the mark with a floating accent and odd tonalities that aren’t in tune with what Van Sant wants to build within Kiritsis’s path. Only Skarsgård and Montgomery are performers of note, and they give us something to hold onto in a movie that only seems to be interested in recreating the events of Tony Kiritsis’s kidnapping of Richard Hall instead of diving far deeper than a simple docudrama.
Final Thoughts on Dead Man’s Wire
As a result, Dead Man’s Wire may be considered as one of Van Sant’s most forgettable efforts, but unlike The Sea of Trees (his worst film), it’s not for a lack of trying. There’s enough to hold our attention, and perhaps remind us of the calibre of his work before he decided to go on autopilot and not craft something tangible ever again. Maybe the day will come when we’ll get another masterpiece from him, but Dead Man’s Wire is, unfortunately, not that day.
Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire is now playing in theaters!
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