Alliance Entertainment
Remember Michael Douglas in Falling Down, the controversial 1993 film about an ordinary guy pushed to his limit who goes off the deep end?
The recent film Dead Man’s Wire is not a remake—not even close—but in a lot of ways, it sure feels like it. The main character in both movies is an ordinary guy who goes off the deep end.
The difference is that this one is based on a real case that happened in 1977.
From what I can tell, the film quite accurately presents its almost unbelievable story. Our protagonist feels that a loan company he has borrowed from on a real estate deal has cheated him, specifically so they could take over his plans themselves. He goes to confront the head of the company only to find he’s on vacation. He has to settle for his son.
What he does then is rig the poor man up to a device that will cause a gun pointed directly at him to go off if he isn’t careful or if he tries anything. The police are quickly on the scene as the two men exit the building, commandeer a cop car, and head back to the hostage-taker’s apartment. At that point, he calls his favorite radio deejay and that’s when the story takes off.
Another story this reminds one of is 1975’s Dog Day Afternoon, also a true story, and, like this movie half a century later, also with Al Pacino! Pacino, older, hairier, and gruffer here, plays the head of the company from whom an apology is demanded. Just a couple of scenes, and really just a cameo, but fun to see.
Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård is our main character, Tony Kiritsis, and he does quite an amazing job playing a Midwestern American. He doesn’t really look like the guy he’s playing but comparing the press conference scene in the film to the real-life event, currently on YouTube, he has the man’s attitude down pat. He’s impressive.
Even more impressive is the performance from Dacre Montgomery, a veteran of Stranger Things, as his hostage. He doesn’t really get a lot of lines and yet emotionally, his every appearance steals the scene.
My favorite character, though is the deejay played by Colman Domingo. He’s brought into the story by Tony, who’s been listening to his show. After broadcasting a brief interview with Tony, he becomes the only person he’ll talk with as things escalate. I knew who Colman Domingo was but had somehow never seen him in anything. I was beginning to think he was just a cool-looking guy who showed up at awards shows.
In another parallel, Tony Kiritsis, like Luigi Mangione in more recent times, becomes a bit of a folk hero for fighting back against the big executives who keep putting down regular guys and keeping them “in their place.” The movie doesn’t really play that part up enough in my opinion.
Danny Elfman provides another lovely film score, augmented by some odd choices of songs by the likes of Yes, B.J. Thomas, and “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” by Gil Scott-Heron, appropriate title-wise, but it name drops people and events that were already outdated by the time the real story was happening in 1977.
In case there was any doubt that Dead Man’s Wire really was an actual real-life event, vintage footage of the real Tony Kiritsis shows up right at the end, and is dotted around and through the closing credits. There’s actually a recent documentary on the whole thing. What you get here, is an actors’ movie, with both Skarsgård and Montgomery giving very different, but very heartfelt performances, as a couple of very real people caught up in a very surreal situation.
Booksteve recommends.
