150 Word Review: 'Dead Man's Wire' (2026)
Staring down the barrel
Gus Van Sant is one of my favorite directors, a skilled, subtle storyteller whose best films are about quirky outcasts. In Dead Man’s Wire, a modest but gripping true crime drama, he kinda remakes Dog Day Afternoon, which is about men pushed too far.
Our man is Tony Kiritsis, who kidnapped Richard Hall, president of an Indianapolis mortgage company, in 1977, while demanding an apology for a real estate deal gone wrong. He did it in broad daylight, too: Kiritsis ran a “dead man’s wire” between Hall’s neck and a shotgun.
This is a showcase for Bill Skarsgård, a rising star, the youngest of the Skarsgård clan, who is famous for playing Pennywise the Clown. Here, he’s a live wire, sympathetic and unpredictable. Colman Domingo is a smooth morning radio DJ. Cary Elwes is unrecognizable as a plainclothes cop. Al Pacino plays a villainous fatcat (speaking of Dog Day Afternoon).
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