‘Dead Man’s Wire’ sets its sights on vigilante justice
Gus Van Sant is no stranger to the true-crime genre, with both “Drug Store Cowboy” and “To Die For” on his resume. In each of those acclaimed films, Van Sant displayed a knack for highlighting the absurdity, not to mention the audacity, of criminals who justify their lawbreaking through a prism of hubris and narcissism. The director’s latest, “Dead Man’s Wire,” fits tightly into that niche, with its deranged protagonist brazenly taking a mortgage company exec hostage and demanding not just compensation for his financial losses, but also an apology for what he perceives has been “done to him.”
It’s set during the Jimmy Carter years, when real estate was booming and foreclosures were decimating the so-called “little guy,” as Indianapolis land speculator Tony Kiritsis prefers to think of himself. He built his dream around constructing a shopping center on a 17-acre tract west of the city. But many of his prospective tenants opted out, leaving him on the verge of bankruptcy. Instead of faulting himself or the location, he targets the folks at Meridian Mortgage, claiming they steered potential clients away from him and toward its own properties.
Kiritsis has no proof of this occurring, but it doesn’t stop him from taking matters into his own hands on the blustery morning of Feb. 8, 1977, when he enters the Meridian offices with the intent of kidnapping chairman M.L. Hall. But upon receiving the news that Hall is off sunning himself in Florida, Kiritsis instead snatches Richard Hall, M.L.’s son.
To make sure he can’t escape, Kiritsis wires a shotgun to the back of Hall’s head and rigs it so that if he dares attempt to flee, or the police shoot or tackle Kiritsis, the gun will blow Hall’s head clean off. It’s a crudely constructed contraption, but effective enough to allow Kiritsis to march Hall through the streets of Indianapolis unabated in front of stunned onlookers before pilfering a police cruiser to ferry Hall back to his abode in the Crestwood Apartments.
Thus begins Van Sant’s seriocomic adaptation of Austin Kolodney’s fact-based script that rightly, or wrongly, casts Kiritsis as an empathetic felon with no choice but to correct perceived wrongs with the business end of a loaded weapon. If this reminds you of Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon,” you’re smack where Van Sant wants you. As if you needed any additional convincing, he’s slyly cast that masterpiece’s star, Al Pacino, as M.L. Hall. Per usual, Big Al (literally) chews the scenery in what amounts to a couple of bloviating cameos that help prop up a somewhat saggy midsection.
Not that Bill Skarsgård doesn’t do his damnedest to render Kiritsis a compelling study of a bereaved dude who, ironically, is rapidly becoming unwired. It’s a fantastic performance, staged from behind an unfortunate lime-green shirt and even sadder mustache. It’s no small feat that he earns not just your sympathy, but that of an entire country on edge as the crisis wears on before a growing national TV audience. At one point, he even knocks John Wayne off the air during an awards ceremony.
Van Sant doesn’t bring anything particularly new to the table, including the battered one that Dacre Montgomery’s Richard remains tethered to for hours on end. Predictably, he weaves in scenes of Kiritsis and Hall engaging in trivial small talk that expositorily susses out each man’s hopes, regrets and disappointments. The gist is that if they weren’t both wired to a shotgun, they might grow to be pals. It’s a wonky form of Stockholm Syndrome that, unfortunately, extends to the audience.
Should we really be rooting for an armed maniac who is tying up valuable resources – police, fire, media – in support of his personal vendetta? It causes you feel a bit icky, but damned if you can turn away, not with Skarsgård and Montgomery proving such a compelling odd couple. The pairing is so magnetic that you almost rue the moments when Van Sant obligatorily moves outside to make us privy to the fraying nerves of the frustrated and embarrassed cops, fronted by Cary Elwes’s Det. Mike Grable, as well as the charismatic disc jockey, Fred Temple (yet another excellent turn by Coleman Domingo), the magnetic man Kiritsis, in his deranged state of mind, has convinced himself is his ally and chief spokesperson.
And might cub TV reporter Linda Page (Myha’la Herrold) be sending a wink and a nod to Nicole Kidman’s go-getter from “To Die For”? She’s eager and hungry for the story that will help her break into prime time, just like Kidman’s unforgettable Suzanne Stone. But Linda is hardly the only member of the minicam brigade to set up camp outside Kiritsis’s apartment house.
To enhance verisimilitude, Van Zant occasionally inserts newsreels and black-and-white wire photos from the three-day standoff. It’s an effective accoutrement, but you can’t help noticing that the real-life images differ from the replicas in that the latter are without the snow, ice and the frozen breath of the breathless TV folks visible in the authentic ones. I assume that’s because most of “Dead Man’s Wire” was filmed in Louisville’s more moderate climate rather than wintry Indianapolis. Most may not notice that sleight of hand, but it’s indicative of the handful of chinks in the movie’s armor, the most obvious being its glorification of vigilante justice.
Van Sant not only renders Kiritsis righteous but also absolves him, as a jury of his peers did, of the crimes by exploiting the anger of an audience of millions of modern-day Americans who can fully relate to his actions. For proof, we need look no further than Luigi Mangione going viral after appointing himself, judge, jury and executioner of the CEO of United Health Care.
Still, in the moment, I was riveted by what is easily Van Sant’s best film in ages. It’s a welcome return to the days when he effectively married pitch-black satire to the deeds of folks who’ve lost touch with humanity. People like Tony Kiritsis, an honest man who possessed the fatal flaw of lacking the humility to cast an ounce of blame upon himself. It was always “someone else’s doing.” Unfortunately, that line of thinking has become an epidemic in today’s increasingly pass-the-buck world.
Bottom line: Should you see “Dead Man’s Wire”? By all means! But it’s ultimately up to you. After all, it’s not like there’s a gun to your head.
Movie review
Dead Man’s Wire
Rated: R for language throughout
Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Al Pacino, Coleman Domingo, Cary Elwes and Myha’la Herrold
Director: Gus Van Sant
Writer: Austin Kolodney
Runtime: 105 minutes
Where: In theaters Jan. 9 (limited)
Grade: B
