Review of Dead Man's Wire
Dead Man’s Wire (2026) Dir. Gus Van Sant
Having not read much around the film but always interested in a gritty hostage thriller, I had a strange sense of Déjà vu when starting out Gus Van Sant’s latest drama.
Not because we’ve seen this wronged-man take a corporate employee hostage to highlight a perceived injustice many times already, but a more literal “I’ve seen this before”. Well, turns out it’s based upon 2018 true-crime documentary Dead Man's Line. Van Sant liaised with the filmmakers to help shape his dramatic retelling of the same story.
If you’re not aware - or seemingly forgotten like me - the tale sees Bill Skarsgård as Tony Kiritsis, who in 1977 heads to a mortgage broker’s office to take a man hostage after feeling cheated on a business deal.
Although he’s frustrated with the sleazy M.L. Hall (Al Pacino) he is stood up and quickly takes his son Richard (Dacre Montgomery) hostage by using a shotgun with a “dead man’s switch” - meaning if he tries to escape, the weapon will go off automatically.
With the police called early on, a cat-and-mouse chase ensues, and Kiritsis engages with local radio DJ Fred Temple (an excellent Colman Domingo) in efforts to get his message out to the media. Kiritsis continues in the hope to receive monetary compensation and, more importantly to him, an apology before the standoff eventually takes darker twists.
On the plus side, the cast is top tier. Skarsgård is fantastic as the desperate protagonist, Domingo is smoothly sensitive as a considerate confidante and Al Pacino adds slimy gravitas even in his minor role.
Also, the movie’s look is incredibly well handled. Cinematographer Arnaud Potier used refurbished broadcast cameras to recreate 1970s vintage news. And the more traditional film stock parts have a grittiness and depth to them which is a million miles away from the streaming “flat” digital look of modern releases that are also often colour-graded to hell.
The negative is that it just isn’t particularly thrilling. Adhering so accurately to the beats of the story is honourable but made me think the film was a bit redundant. Especially with the documentary already existing. And the use of song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is probably just a badly timed inclusion - given it’s in One Battle After Another - but still adds to an undesirable familiarity.
This closely resembles the situation when Robert Zemeckis made The Walk (2015). Taking one of the best documentaries of all time, Man on Wire (2008), and dramatising the story simply wasn’t as exciting as hearing it from the real-life individuals and seeing footage from the era.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this but the story does need more pep or a different angle than the original take. And I suspect its amazingly high Rotten Tomatoes score (91%) is owing to nine out of ten critics giving it a 7/10 and I feel much the same here.
Dead Man’s Shoes has plenty of going for it and it’s certainly a well-made movie with great performances from a powerhouse cast. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that I really wanted to explore the documentary again rather than watch this. And so it ends as a more-than-solid but sadly predictable effort.
★★★½
3.5 / 5
Michael Sales
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Dead Man's Wire is in cinemas 20 March from Vertigo Releasing
