At their best, 1970s crime thrillers (think Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, The French Connection) have a distinct, gorgeous visual atmosphere and built-in intensity that really sells an immersive exploration of criminality. That decade is a half-century away, but Dead Man’s Wire, Gus Van Sant’s delightful return to feature films after a 7-year hiatus, captures that feeling flawlessly. Van Sant’s work has always been worth seeking out, including My Own Private Idaho, Finding Forrester (an undersung personal favorite), Milk, or of course, Good Will Hunting, in part because of his skilled ability to showcase the introspective subjectivity of characters in unusual or tense situations. That’s an aptitude that works really well in Dead Man’s Wire.
Based on a real-life kidnapping event, Dead Man’s Wire follows Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgard), a down-on-his-luck man who feels fleeced by his bank mortgager. He kidnaps Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), the son of higher-up M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), by tying a shotgun to Richard’s neck with a homemade ‘dead man’s wire’. The media-aware Kiritsis wants a few things from the tense kidnapping: to be heard, to get money, to have immunity from prosecution. What he wants most, however (well, in addition to the money), is an apology for the bank’s reported slights against him. Cue a massive, messy media circus.
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