Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!
The old saying is that truth is stranger than fiction. There are variants of this: “You couldn’t write this” or “If I wrote this, no one would believe it.” Movies like Dead Man’s Wire show the reality of the saying. This seems like a story that comes out of a weird fever dream, something just barely on the edge of possible. And then, you have to wonder why it took 50 years to make this story into a movie.
This genuinely feels like the sort of story that belongs on a television show, either as a wacky plot for some weird sitcom or as some insane plot-of-the-week for a crime of the week show. Honestly, it would have worked really well as an episode of Burn Notice or Person of Interest. I still struggle to realize that this is something that actually happened.
In early February, 1977, Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) showed up for his appointment with the Meridian Mortgage company in Indianapolis. He was expecting to meet with the head of the company, M.L. Hall (Al Pacino). He learns from Hall’s son Richard (Dacre Montgomery) that M.L. is on vacation in Florida and the meeting will be with him instead. This is not a meeting that is going to go in the way that Richard is expecting. The two retreat to Richard’s office and almost immediately, Tony pulls out a shotgun and wires it around Richard’s neck as a dead man switch. Essentially, if he is interfered with or if Richard attempts to escape, he won’t have much of a head left.
Why do this? Tony is convinced that the Halls cheated him of a huge payout on a land deal. Kiritsis had purchased 17 acres of land for development, and holds the Halls responsible for why the deals fell through. Wanting to get his message out, Kiritsis doesn’t hide what he’s doing. He calls the police himself, informs them of what he is doing, and eventually commandeers a police car, forcing Richard to drive him home, where he has booby-trapped the doors and windows of his apartment with explosives.
In another area where this story moves in a direction no one will expect, Kiritsis doesn’t want to talk to the police, but instead decides to open up to Fred Temple (Colman Domingo), a local jazz DJ. He explains his desperation and what he thinks the Halls did to him, convinced that Temple will actually pay attention to him and be on his side (and it’s worth noting that Fred Temple is a fictional character and is more or less an amalgam of actual people). We’re also going to get a few side plots—a local reporter named Linda Page (Myha’la) and her cameraman (John Robinson) see this story as an opportunity to make their bones in local news. Meanwhile, the police, including Kiritsis’s acquaintance Det. Michael Grable (Cary Elwes) look for a way to take Kiritsis down without killing the hostage.
In some very real ways, the movie that this feels the closest to is Dog Day Afternoon. The hostage situation, the righteous anger, the oddly comic aspect of the whole thing feels cut from the same cloth. Tony Kiritsis is wildly profane, and while Michael Hall may have done something shady (although there’s no clear evidence of that in the film), he is also very much the victim here. Dacre Montgomery’s job is to look constantly scared of what might happen, angry that it is happening, and completely bored that nothing is actually happening in terms of getting him released. It’s also worth noting that he bears a very weird resemblance to Ken Paxton in this, but that’s not at all his fault.
The entirety of this film centers around the ability of Bill Skarsgård to hold the frame and sell the narrative, and he pulls this off extremely well. His brand of off-centeredness is exactly what the role requires. We as the audience need to be sympathetic to what Tony Kiritsis is going through and just as keenly aware that it is likely mostly self-inflicted and that the man is several fries short of a Happy Meal. It’s a case where it would be difficult to think of someone else in the role. The cast is good in general, but this is definitely Skarsgård’s film.
I don’t know how this slipped under the radar. This is a film that is simultaneously ridiculous, hilarious, tense, and gob-smacking.
Why to watch Dead Man’s Wire: The fact that this is based on a true story is bonkers.
Why not to watch: The real story can’t be this crazy, can it?
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