In 1977, a desperate and volatile man walked into a loan office and tied a shotgun to a man’s neck. This is how Dead Man Wire, the new film from Gus Van Sant, kicks off in its opening moments. This thriller adapts the true story of Tony Kiritsis, who after being scammed out of a land-deal and left drowning in debt by a mortgage lender, took the broker hostage at gunpoint, turning a personal dispute into a media sensation that kept the city of Indianapolis on edge for 63 tense hours.
Kiritsis is played by Bill Skarsgård in this dramatic retelling of the hostage situation. Louisville’s own Van Sant returns to the big screen with his first feature since 2018, from a screenplay by Austin Kolodney (his feature debut as a screenwriter), with a local crew and a star-studded cast that all came together to make a richly textured and suspenseful movie based on a remarkable true story.
‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Brings Louisville to the Big Screen
Van Sant has added to the small but notable and growing number of major films that have utilized Louisville as a backdrop for their stories. Michael Mann’s The Insider, Stripes starring Bill Murray, and more recent examples such as The Art of Self Defense or Ethan Hawke’s Wildcat have filmed locally.
The crew of Dead Man’s Wire transformed downtown Louisville into 1970s Indianapolis, where the true story which inspired the film took place. Filmed in and around the now-vacant former Courier Journal offices, the team makes skillful use of a city not often seen on the big screen.
Local actors like Neil Mulac populate the cast, adding character to a movie that is all about real people. Though there are big names involved, Dead Man’s Wire looks and plays like a refreshingly small-scale, intimate thriller.
Bill Skarsgård’s Wiry, Offbeat Performance Draws You Into the Mind of a Desperate Man
Dead Man’s Wire lives or dies on the central performance, and Skarsgård is more than up to the task of taking on this character who is both exceedingly bizarre, unpredictable, and deeply empathetic at times. Tony is a strange man, friendly in disposition but boiling with rage at the injustice put upon him, and there is no level of Skarsgård’s performance that is inconsistent with the off-kilter nature of this man. His facial expressions, body language, and especially his vocal delivery are all managed with a fearless quality, making for one of Skarsgård’s most intense performances to date.
Skarsgård is joined by Dacre Montgomery as the hostage son of the mortgage company owner. Montgomery grounds an increasingly absurd situation, playing off Skarsgård’s manic energy with a subdued performance. Colman Domingo portrays a charismatic radio DJ who Tony admires and uses to deliver messages to the police. Domingo walks into the movie looking and sounding like a million bucks. With one of the greatest voices in Hollywood, it is a knockout piece of casting to place him in the role of a radio personality.
Al Pacino plays the wealthy, unrepentant mortgage lender whose son Tony holds for ransom. He goes big with a Foghorn Leghorn adjacent accent in a performance that is otherwise entirely seated and always on the edges of the story. For such a legendary cinematic presence, Pacino is employed in a way that feels understated and does not take over the film.
‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Speaks to Modern Cultural Attitudes About Wealth and Class Divide
There have been many films about men gone mad, taking hostages at gunpoint. In 1975, Pacino starred in one of his own, Dog Day Afternoon, where a bank robbery turns into a media frenzy. In the early 2000s, Denzel Washington played a father taking an emergency room hostage to get his son a heart transplant in John Q. In these films, much like Dead Man’s Wire, the viewer and the characters surrounding the fringes of the narrative extend empathy toward the perpetrator, because at the end of the day, we can see the injustice that has been done to them, or that their ultimate objective is a righteous one. The real villain is the system that necessitates such desperate acts to simply make right what a corporation did wrong to a person with no power to take any reasonable countermeasures.
Though this situation played out in 1977, it speaks to the general attitude of the mid-2020s, as wealth inequality feels at an all-time high. People are not buying homes. Healthcare costs are draining folks of everything they have. Those who are lucky to find work are desperate to hold onto it as the economy teeters. Viewers will have a much harder time finding empathy for the Hall family than they will for Tony himself, a person who is undoubtedly committed to an extreme act but motivated by struggles that any working class person understands all too well.
Kolodney’s script is urgent and sharp, bringing a period-set story into a time where it is more relevant than ever before. Van Sant’s first feature in over eight years is a reminder that his work has been sorely missed on screen. Dead Man’s Wire strikes hard in its earliest moments and never cuts loose; this is a straightforward and thoughtfully crafted thriller you do not want to miss.
8 out of 10
Dead Man’s Wire is now playing in theaters.
This article appears in Jan 1-31, 2026.