Directed by Gus Van Sant, this “no-frills” thriller tells the real-life story of an Indianapolis businessman called Tony Kiritsis who, in 1977, caused a media sensation by holding his mortgage broker hostage for 63 hours, said Wendy Ide in The Observer.
Played with “jittery, boggle-eyed intensity” by Bill Skarsgård, Kiritsis is convinced that the broker, Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), and the broker’s father (Al Pacino), have cheated him out of his dream of owning a shopping mall.
So Kiritsis loops a wire contraption around Hall’s neck – the “dead man’s wire” of the film’s title – which is designed to ensure that if police shoot Kiritsis, Hall will die too. He also demands a payment of $5 million (£3.7 million), and an apology from Hall’s father. The film “skimps slightly on characterisation”, but it’s “taut and enjoyable”, and it has a “soulful” soundtrack to match the era in which it is set.
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Van Sant “orchestrates the tension extremely well”, said Jonathan Romney in the Financial Times, and he’s “just as interested in a time and place”, nailing in particular the “distinctive drabness” of a 1970s Indianapolis winter.
“Dead Man’s Wire” also benefits from a “terrific” cast – although Pacino rather lets the side down, appearing on screen “like a snorting bull in his own personal china shop”.
Van Sant (whose first film this is in eight years) has “experience in this sort of material”, said John Nugent in Empire: his “awards-hoovering” “Milk” (2008) “dealt with the political violence of the 1970s”, while 2003’s “Elephant” “probed the psychology of school shootings”. “Dead Man’s Wire” “doesn’t feel quite as essential” as those movies; nor is it as “emotionally complex”. Still, Skarsgård proves that he has a real talent for “crazed lunacy”, and the film is sure “to keep your heart rate up”.