On Feb. 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis walked into an Indianapolis mortgage firm, strapped a shotgun to the neck of executive Richard Hall, and then headed home, where he held law enforcement, TV news crews, and a popular radio station deejay captive for three days. Kiritsis aired his grievances, made a list of financial demands, and asked for an apology from the mortgage firm for setting the terms in their favor.

Considering the sentiments toward the banking and lending industry since the Great Recession, not to mention the 2024 murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, it isn’t a surprise that Kiritsis’ story would garner renewed attention in 21st-century America. In 2018, Alan Berry and Mark Enochs released the documentary Dead Man’s Line about the ’77 standoff, which has now become the basis for the narrative retelling, Dead Man’s Wire, written by Austin Kolodney and directed by Gus Van Sant.

Dead Man’s Wire is an impressive piece of drama, layered not just with reenactments—Bill Skarsgård plays Kiritsis, Dacre Montgomery plays Hall, and Colman Domingo plays radio deejay Fred Temple—but with archival footage and contemporary footage designed to look archival. Cinematographer Arnaud Potier and editor Saar Klein balance the three textures, and Van Sant keeps the narrative taut from minute one.

But Dead Man’s Wire is a paradoxical portrait. Skarsgård walks the fine line of playing a caricature of a broken man at wits’ end, and one who really is. That imbues his profanity-fueled tirades with enough everyman desperation that Kiritsis comes off as a hero to some, another wild man with a gun to others.

I’m not sure which side Van Sant and Potier’s loyalties lie. They allow Kiritsis the space he needs to express himself, but they also give him enough rope to expose his social cause as a selfish one.

Then there’s the scene where Kiritsis’ press conference interrupts a John Wayne tribute at an awards show, complete with clips of Wayne shooting every bad guy the Wild West produced. Here, Van Sant uses the gun to connect everyman Kiritsis with American icon John Wayne. What memory would we have of Marion Morrison if he hadn’t taken a stage name and played characters who worked out of the business end of a gun? Did anyone listen to Kiritsis’ complaints before he picked up a shotgun? In America, guns level the playing field—not because of the threat they possess, but because they seem to be the only threat Americans take seriously.

Dead Man’s Wire (2025)
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Screenplay by Austin Kolodney
Produced by Noor Alfallah, Remi Alfallah, Mark Amin, Andrea Bucko, Gordon Clark, Tom Culliver, Cassian Elwes, Billy Hines, Joel David Moore, Matt Murphie, Siena Oberman, Paula Paizes, Sam Pressman, Veronica Radaelli
Starring: Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Al Pacino, Cary Elwes, Colman Domingo
Row K Entertainment, Rated R, Running time 107 minutes, Premiered Sept. 2, 2025 at the Venice Film Festival

---