Dead Man’s Wire (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Dead Man's Wire

DEAD MAN’S WIRE (2026)

Starring Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, Myha'la, Colman Domingo, Al Pacino, John Robinson, Kelly Lynch, Todd Gable, Mark Helms, Michael Ashcraft, Neil Mulac, Daniel R. Hill, Jordan Claire Robbins, Kyle Rankin, Casey Feigh, Stephanie Bertoni, Vinh Nguyen, John N. Dixon, Katie Kinman, Don Overstreet, Elliot Gross, Danielle Munday and Andy S. Allen.

Screenplay by Austin Kolodney.

Directed by Gus Van Sant.

Distributed by Row K Entertainment. 105 minutes. Rated R.

The 1970s were the era of the antihero, particularly in Hollywood. They were deeply flawed, generally personable men who did wrong things, arguably for the right reasons. Amongst them were such legendary characters as Travis Bickle, Popeye Doyle, Michael Corleone, Tony Manero, Billy Jack, Jack Carter, Paul Kersey, Jake Gittes and “Dirty” Harry Callahan.

The main character of Dead Man’s Wire – Tony Kiritsis played by Bill Skarsgård – fits oddly in this category, and not just because the film is based on a true story which took place in the 1970s. In 1977, Kiritsis started one of the earliest media circuses when he held a local bank magnate’s adult son hostage as reparation for bad business dealings with the bank. (Kiritsis originally planned to kidnap the father, but the old man blew off his meeting with him.)

Kiritsis kept his hostage in line with a “dead-man’s wire” – a personal invention which attached a shotgun in front of the man’s face, attached by a wire which would pull the trigger if he moved suddenly or violently.

Soon, the story became a national news phenomenon, and Kiritsis became a minor celebrity as cops and the press and intrigued bystanders camped outside his apartment building while Kiritsis bided for time and insisted on a formal apology from the father. He also stipulated upon the bank formally waving all of his debts, safe passage out of the country and $5 million in cash.

The story – even if it didn’t take place in the era – feels like one of those classic 1970s antihero dramas. Actually, specifically, it feels like two of them. One, and most notably, is the 1975 Best Picture-nominated film Dog Day Afternoon, which was also based on a true story about a hostage situation which explodes into a media circus. In fact, Dead Man’s Wire even brings in that film’s star Al Pacino to play the antihero’s main antagonist. The second one is, surprisingly enough, is “Siege of Terror,” the first episode of the popular 1970s police series Kojak, which guest starred a young Harvey Keitel as the hostage taker.

However, does Tony Kiritsis truly fit the antihero mold of a seriously flawed-but-essentially-good man? This is where Dead Man’s Wire becomes a bit problematic. He certainly thinks that he is. He sees himself as a little man standing up to the heartless corporations which have been exploiting him and the rest of the working class. He sees himself as a Robin Hood-type of character, robbing from the rich to give to the poor. (Of course, in his case the poor person in question is himself.)

He’s an oddball, a bit full of himself and constantly ranting about his perceived slights and receiving justice, but his patter is oddly memorable and strangely naive. He is starstruck by a local DJ named Fred Temple (Colman Domingo) and is soon regularly calling in to his program and negotiating on the air. (Temple is a fictional character, loosely based on a local journalist named Fred Heckman.)

However, his crime, specifically his weapon, and his suggested ransom, I feel takes him a bit out of the range of classic antiheroes. Honestly, while he is an oddly intriguing character, much more interesting are the hostage Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery) and local police detective Michael Grable (played by a nearly unrecognizable Cary Elwes) who knows both the criminal and the hostage and tries desperately to keep the situation under control. Even Pacino’s hard-headed and sociopathic villain banker is more interesting than the hero.

This story seems like a bit of an odd choice for acclaimed filmmaker Gus Van Sant to make his first film in almost eight years. However, oddly enough, in some ways it is right in Van Sant’s wheelhouse. Arguably his best film – 2008’s Best Picture winner Milk with Sean Penn about the murder of the first elected gay man in California – was also based on a dark true story of the 1970s. Of course, while Harvey Milk was a complicated man, he was no antihero. In fact, he was more of a tragic hero. However, that film did have an antihero in Josh Brolin’s Dan White.

Also, Van Sant’s most recent film, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,  the acclaimed (probably a bit over-acclaimed) 2018 drama about a quadriplegic cartoonist, was also a 1970s true story about a very problematic antihero. Also, his 1989 indie classic Drugstore Cowboy is another antihero film based on a true story which took place in the 1970s.

So, in that way Dead Man’s Wire is very much a return for Van Sant, and his eye and ear for the era is still spot on. The film is very well-made and gripping, if perhaps Van Sant and screenwriter Austin Kolodney see Kiritsis as a more virtuous and understandable person than I may.

Spoiler alert: I will not tell what happens in the film’s climax, however there is something in the aftermath which I feel is vital to understand my issue with how Dead Man’s Wire handles its main character. This is all part of the public record, and this was once a very celebrated case, although it is largely forgotten nearly fifty years later. Many people will know about what I am going to talk about. However, if you want to go into the movie completely blind to the ending, you may want to skip the next paragraph. 

Okay, are all of the spoiler-averse people out? Good. Okay, my biggest issue is that the film tries to let Kiritsis off the hook, suggesting that he got away with it because in the end he was found not guilty due to insanity, even though he always insisted he was completely sane. In fact, they only sheepishly acknowledge in the “what happened to” chyrons before the end credits that Kiritsis spent eight years in a mental hospital – which is not probably worthy of his crimes, but still not exactly getting off scot-free.

Spoiler-averse people can return.

Dead Man’s Wire is certainly an imperfect film, however, with some terrific performances by Skarsgård (it’s nice to see him acting without makeup covering his features), Montgomery, Elwes and even a slightly-over-the-top Pacino, it makes for some arresting viewing. I’m not sure that the world really had to revisit this historical event, but in the long run I’m sort of glad that they made it. This type of movie is too rare in modern times, so even a flawed example is intriguing. Which is sort of the definition of an antihero.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: January 8, 2026.