by Tony Medley

105 minutes

R.

Dead Man’s Wire” is a true‑crime drama about a desperate, aggrieved borrower who thinks a mortgage company has cheated him in 1977 Indianapolis. He had 17 acres that he wanted to turn into a shopping center, but claims Meridian treated him unfairly.

Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgärd) goes to Meridian Mortgage Company on February 8, 1977 and when the President is out of town, takes his son, Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), hostage. Kiritsis rigs a shotgun to Richard’s neck with a taut wire—the “dead man’s wire”—so that if police shoot Tony, tackle him, or Richard makes a wrong move, the gun will fire and kill the hostage

Then he takes Hall to his apartment and makes demands of the company for immunity, an apology for the way they treated him, and money. As the standoff drags on for days, it turns into a bizarre media event, with a local radio host becoming Tony’s preferred go‑between and TV crews broadcasting his angry monologues nationwide.

While the confrontation slogs on for almost interminably, it turns into a weird mass media event, with a local radio personality acting as Tony’s go‑between and TV crews broadcasting his vitriolic harangues nationwide.

The story shapes toward Tony’s demand for a live, televised appearance where he wants to depict his gripes to the country at large, and determine Richard’s fate in front of the cameras.

It alternates between thriller and character study combining Tony’s festering bitterness, mental volatility, and self‑image as a “small fry” fighting a manipulated system. On the other side, it shows that law enforcement considered several options, including killing Tony

Filled with mounting tension and well directed by Gus Van Sant from a script by Austin Kolodney, this is said to be “based on” the actual events. That’s probably because the dialogue has been invented, because the story is true. This actually happened.

Tony Medley is an attorney, columnist, and MPAA-accredited film critic whose reviews and articles may be read in several newspapers and at rottentomatoes.com, CWEB.com, robinhoodnews.com, Movie Review Query Engine (mrqe.com), and at www.tonymedley.com. A former sports editor of the UCLA Daily Bruin, he is the author of four books, UCLA Basketball: The Real Story, Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed, the first book ever written on the interview for the interviewee, having sold over a half million copies, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Bridge, which has sold over 100,000 copies, and Learn to Play Bridge Like a Boss. He is an American Contract Bridge League Ruby Life Master and an ACBL accredited director. He is a Mensa Life Member and a member of the International Society of Philosophic Research, ISPE (“The Thousand”).

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