This review contains spoilers
“Dead Man’s Wire” is a unique film, even for a director with a voice as distinct and diversified as Gus Van Sant. The film does not portray a detached observation of nihilistic fatalism and detached state of drift, a theme prevalent in Van Sant’s Death Trilogy and “Paranoid Park.” The film certainly does not offer emotional clarity and comfort like “Good Will Hunting” either. It gestures towards multitudes of themes, but refuses to make a firm statement on any of them.
In “Elephant,” Van Sant captures the obscurity of meaning which leads the tragic incident to become unintelligible. In “Dead Man’s Wire,” the incident takes place within the first ten minutes of the film when Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) wires a shotgun around Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), a son of the mortgage broker M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), who Tony believes has defrauded him.
The film attempts to make sense of the reason for Tony’s crime, but cannot arrive at a clear answer. Failure of capitalism seems to be one explanation, but it is made ambiguous whether Tony has truly been cheated by the Halls as M.L. Hall refuses to acknowledge it. FBI profilers attempt to come up with their own explanation to deescalate the situation, none of which seems to work.
The media and news impose their own version of the story to the one most favorable for rating and viewership. Even Tony himself seems to misunderstand his own motive due to the sudden media coverage and fame he receives, claiming to represent the small people of Indianapolis which doesn’t seem to be the case.
Regardless of whether Tony’s claim was groundless or not, it is only following his crime that he is heard by the institution, even if it was merely procedural. The moment he is put under arrest, the case is treated as resolved and Tony’s voice is neglected again, hinting at individual desperation and erasure within bureaucratic indifference. The final verdict of the court, that Tony is found not guilty by reason of insanity, seems both appropriate and cruel.
While “Dead Man’s Wire” does not match the directorial ambition Van Sant exhibited in his previous films such as “Gerry,” it does take some bold risks by blending different media such as podcasts, news broadcasts as well as reality. Inspired by an actual crime that took place in 1977, it elevates the film to the boundaries of metafiction, though not as clever as the likes of Abbas Kiarostami or Charlie Kaufman.
Verdict: While it’s not Gus Van Sant at his sharpest, “Dead Man’s Wire” still manages to capture moral ambiguity resulting from individual suffering in 70s America.
