Venice 2025: ‘Dead Man’s Wire’ is a Vintage 1970s Folk Hero Story
by Alex Billington
September 3, 2025
This is a true story. It all really happened. Now 48 years later it’s being retold again and will find new life as a folk hero story about a man frustrated with the system who decides to try and make a difference… Even if the way he sets the record straight isn’t exactly legal or very nice, all that matters is he causes a scene and gets people to listen to his plight. Sometimes that’s what it takes, right? When the system is totally broken and there’s nothing else you can really do, you might need to break some laws and shake things up. No one was hurt! Thankfully. It’s all gravy! Dead Man’s Wire is a brand new, true story crime thriller made by acclaimed American filmmaker Gus Van Sant. It’s his first feature film in 7 years, since last making Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot back in 2018. Van Sant seems to still be into telling crime stories from America’s past, as this is yet another story about a peculiar incident. But who’s the actual criminal in this story? That’s up to you to decide. The press screening audience at the 2025 Venice Film Festival was so into this story & what happens, they cheered non-stop during the credits. This guy certainly got their attention…
Directed by successful indie filmmaker Gus Van Sant (his 18th feature film so far), from a screenplay written by Austin Kolodney, this is an actual story and it all really happened. The morning of February 8th, 1977, Anthony G. “Tony” Kiritsis (played by Bill Skarsgård), 44, entered the offices of Richard O. “Dick” Hall (Dacre Montgomery), president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun wired with a “dead man’s wire” from the trigger to the Hall’s head. His plan was to get his father, played by a very grump Al Pacino, but he was on vacation so he took his son instead. Back in those days the cops were pretty careless, so Tony proceeds to take Dick out and into his car, and drive down to his apartment where he holds him hostage for days. There was no shootout or anything. Tony didn’t really want to hurt Dick – he was pissed at how the rich bastards who run Meridian Mortgage treated him. His demands to let him go involved getting his money back and Meridian issuing a public apology. Eventually he asked for immunity, too. Somehow, the cops agreed and nothing had happened to anyone. Because while this is the story of a scary hostage situation, it’s actually about all the greedy bastards who ruin other people, and a tale of one man who did whatever he could to show the world he wouldn’t stand for that BS anymore.
While I wasn’t familiar with Tony Kiritsis’ story before, he actually did become a kind of folk hero amongst regular folks who understood with his plight. He’s a bit like the Barefoot Bandit or D.B. Cooper or, dare I say, Luigi Mangione. Van Sant frames this story around a radio DJ named Fred Temple, played perfectly by Colman Domingo. Tony was a big fan of his radio show, so he kinda used Fred to get the word out and tell his story, so that regular people could hear and understand why he was kidnapping and holding him. It actually worked. Sometimes people do listen! And they do sympathize with others being screwed over. There are a few filmmaking flourishes Van Sant adds, otherwise this is a fairly straight-forward, no frills recreation of the story of Tony & Dick. There’s not enough excitement or energy in the storytelling to make it riveting and/or rewatchable. It’s somewhat entertaining, thanks to an exceptionally good wired-up lead performance by Skarsgård as Tony. But I wish there was more to engage with, I wish I felt like shouting from the rooftops once it was over. That said, the message matters the most. And it’s clear the Venice audience caught onto that cheering so loudly when it ended. They were clearly fans of Tony, too… Even though it’s obvious some will argue that he was the bad guy and what he did was wrong. But that can be said about Dick, too, can’t it?
Of course there are plenty of other films like this – most notably Dog Day Afternoon and any of the movies about D.B. Cooper and/or the Barefoot Bandit. The attention-to-detail in recreating the 1970s aesthetic (and stark difference in policing) is impressive, in order to let Tony and all his decisions that February speak for themselves. Van Sant doesn’t try to be preachy and doesn’t need to be. Even if the film is a bit rough around the edges, it’s a clever story and maybe some other viewers will be more amped up watching this than I was.
Alex’s Venice 2025 Rating: 6.5 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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