Final Rating: 2.5/5
Ed. note: read our original review of Dead Man’s Wire from TIFF.
Starting on February 8th 1977 and lasting several days, Tony Kiritsis held his mortgage broker hostage, after believing that his broker, and the broker’s father who owned the firm, were conspiring against Tony to bilk him out of money and eventually foreclose on the land where they would make an increased profit by scooping it up.
Dead Man’s Wire, directed by Gus Van Sant, tells the story consisting entirely from the moment that Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) pulls up to the office building where Meridian Mortgage was based in Indianapolis, Indiana and ending when the hostage situation finishes, keeping the story contained.
The true story goes that Kiritsis found a plot of land that he believed would be ideal to open a shopping centre at, but after approaching Meridian Mortgage to get a loan for that land, they tried to steer him away and to purchase a different plot. Undeterred, Kiritsis eventually got them to give him a loan, one that he believed to have been negotiated in bad faith by Meridian that had interest rates higher than usual for the sole purpose of Kiritsis to foreclose on the property and allow Meridian to buy it on the cheap since they knew the true value of the land.
The person Kiritsis blamed the most was M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), the president of the company. On the morning of February 8th, Kiritsis had an appointment with Hall and showed up at the office with a plan of holding him hostage until his debt is forgiven and Hall admits to what he did.
Unfortunately, M.L. had taken an unannounced vacation to Florida and didn’t bother to notify any clients with meetings lined up. An already mad as hell Kiritsis becomes irate, with M.L’s son, Dick Hall (Dacre Montgomery) who worked on Kiritsis’ deal convincing him to come up to his dad’s office for a chat.
Immediately once in Dick’s fathers office, Kiritsis proceeds to affix a shotgun with a wire attached to the trigger that on one end goes around Dick’s neck and the other around Kiritsis. The point being that if Dick tries to escape, he will set off the shotgun pointed directly at his head and if the police shoot Kiritsis and he falls down, it too will set off the shotgun. This is where the titular dead man’s wire comes from.
Kiritsis views himself as a folk hero, one that is rising up against the corrupt ruling class and will expose the corruption holding people like him back. The action shifts quickly from Meridian Mortgage back to Kiritsis’ apartment after commandeering a police cruiser. From there he has insulated himself once again from the police by wiring his apartment with explosives, putting both his own life and his hostages life on the line as a negotiating tactic.
Quickly his demands are made consisting of back pay of five million dollars of interest paid, immunity and most importantly a formal apology and admission of wrongdoing by Meridian. The film plays out as the police try to negotiate with Kiritsis as he tries to prove his humanity not just to himself but to Dick, whose life rests on remaining calm and being sympathetic to Tony.
Director Van Sant imbues the film with a late 70’s palette occasionally cutting to footage the news team that is covering the incident, giving the film a texture of low quality film grain that feels authentic. Unfortunately a weak script and a moral that is stated but not exactly proven to the audience, holds the film back from going beyond an interesting story and not being a compelling narrative.
It isn’t hard to sympathise with Kiritsis railing against the money lending industry. The entire plot of The Big Short was about overextending people’s credit and when the default, buying it up on the cheap. We see large scale financial institutions like Black Rock quickly becoming the largest purchaser of single family homes leaving less and less people the ability to buy a home of their own. The problem is Van Sant tries to stay as neutral as possible, with neither Dick or M.L. having a moment of admitting guilt, even if they don’t want to admit fault or remorse. This leads us to question whether or not Kiritsis was even being stolen from or cheated.
Pacino seems to have been cast much like how Robert DeNiro played the talk show host in Joker after originally being the upstart comedian in King of Comedy, as Pacino starred in Dog Day Afternoon as a bank robber and hostage taker with a politically minded purpose. He shines as the callous capitalist CEO that drives Kiritsis past his breaking point.
Unfortunately on the other hand, Dacre Montgomery’s Dick feels underwritten. His purpose is mostly to look deeply uncomfortable with a shotgun pointed at his face while not upsetting Kiritsis. He does a fine job showing the pain he is experiencing, but never rises above being just some guy on the other end of the shotgun. We don’t really learn his inner workings. Does he condone what his father is accused of? Does he try to rip off customers himself? Does he regret the pain caused to people like Kiritsis?
Most importantly, there is a scene where Dick’s father M.L. finally talks with Kiritsis on the phone to apologize. Pacino plays him indignantly, refusing to back down doing the ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ schtick, despite the fact that upsetting Kiritsis could very well endanger his son’s life. We get the briefest of moments where Dick is upset by his father’s refusal to apologize, but in the end it doesn’t cause him to have any kind of change of heart or usher in any new information.
Films like Dog Day Afternoon, which deal with righteous criminals, or Network which rages against the machine of corruption have much more to say and add bite to its meaning. Dead Man’s Wire unfortunately pulls back anytime the audience might sympathize with Kiritsis, odd especially since Van Sant’s early work was so subversive and that the real Tony Kiritsis, while not considered a folk hero, certainly had people across America that thought he was right for being mad as hell and not wanting to take it anymore.
The supporting turns from Colman Domingo as a local DJ that Kiritsis uses to negotiate through the police with, Cary Elwes as the lead cop in charge of the hostage situation and Myha’la as the upstart television reporter who is on the scene first all turn in entertaining performances.
One of the highlights is Van Sant’s incorporation of real footage from other news crews covering the situation adds a nice layer of realism, much in the way September 5 did so concerning the hostage crisis during the Munich Olympic Games in 1972.
The film is entertaining enough to never be boring, but its downfall is wanting us to both be on Tony Kiritsis side, while never straying too far from thinking he is dangerous and unstable, negating any true sympathy we have for him, especially considering the political climate we find ourselves in, we should be wholly on his side.
Thank you to Mongrel Media and Star PR for the screener.
