Dead Man’s Wire Review: Trigger Warning, It’s a Dud

On the morning of February 8, 1977, a man named Tony Kiritsis walked into a mortgage company in Indianapolis and did something so audacious, so reckless, so darkly absurd that it captivated the nation for three days. What happened next played out on live television, became a case study in media ethics courses, and has lingered in true crime circles ever since. Director Gus Van Sant‘s Dead Man’s Wire attempts to bring that infamous standoff to life. The result is a film that looks the part but never finds its pulse.

Tony (Bill Skarsgård, Nosferatu) believed he’d been cheated by Meridian Mortgage on a loan that was supposed to be his ticket to the American Dream. His response was to take company president Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery, Elvis) hostage using a homemade device rigged to ensure that if anyone tried to intervene, things would end badly for everyone. What follows is a marathon of demands, media circus chaos, and negotiations that tested everyone involved.

Van Sant (Promised Land) has spent his career finding compelling entry points into outsiders and outlaws, from Drugstore Cowboy to Milk. His return after a seven-year absence should have been an event. Instead, Dead Man’s Wire plays like a paint-by-numbers true crime drama that somehow forgets to create any actual tension. There’s a strange flatness to the entire production, as if everyone involved knew they were making something important but couldn’t figure out how to make it interesting.

The performances don’t help. Skarsgård commits fully, maybe too fully, delivering the kind of capital-A Acting that calls attention to itself rather than disappearing into character. Montgomery remains flatly mediocre throughout, never quite selling the terror of his situation. Myha’la (Bodies Bodies Bodies) plays a meek-voiced reporter hoping to make a name for herself, stuck in the right place at the wrong time, while Colman Domingo (Candyman) is a radio DJ who becomes Tony’s unlikely mouthpiece. Both are talented performers capable of much more, but their scenes play like first takes—actors still finding their footing, offering broad characterizations instead of real people.

And then there’s Cary Elwes (Black Christmas) as a detective, buried under a wig and facial hair pieces that make him look distractingly like Paul Rudd. It took me twenty minutes to identify him, which might have been a mercy. If there’s a saving grace, it’s Al Pacino (House of Gucci) as the elder Hall, whose trademark hamminess actually works here. When everyone else is straining for period-appropriate grit, his willingness to go big at least gives you something to hold onto.

The film’s true strength lies in its production design. Stefan Dechant, an Oscar nominee for The Tragedy of Macbeth, creates striking recreations of 1977 Indianapolis, all saturated colors inspired by William Eggleston’s photography rather than the muddy browns most films default to for the era. Costume designer Peggy Schnitzer dresses Skarsgård in a lime-green polo that feels authentically hideous in the best way. But Van Sant undercuts his own visuals with bizarre choices: sudden freeze-frames, recreated still photographs, and jarring intercuts with actual archival footage that feel like techniques a film student would try, not decisions from a celebrated filmmaker. Danny Elfman‘s score is so restrained it barely registers.

The 2018 documentary Dead Man’s Line covers the same events and might be the better choice for true crime enthusiasts looking to understand what actually happened that winter in Indianapolis. Van Sant’s version never manages to answer the question his own press materials ask: what drives someone to cross a line like Tony did? The themes stay buried under the weight of a thin script performed by actors who seem to be in different movies. It looks like 1977. It just doesn’t feel like anything.