MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The thriller "Dead Man's Wire" dramatizes a real hostage incident from the 1970s. Critic Bob Mondello says director Gus Van Sant's film seems to speak across the decades.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: On February 8, 1977, Indianapolis businessman Tony Kiritsis walked into the office of his mortgage company and handed its president, Richard Hall, what looked at first like a property site plan. It was actually a diagram of a shotgun with a wire attached.
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DACRE MONTGOMERY: (As Richard Hall) Hang on a second.
BILL SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) Now you turn around.
MONDELLO: Tony, played by Bill Skarsgard, is holding a gun.
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SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) I'm going to wire this here shotgun to your neck.
MONTGOMERY: (As Richard Hall) Tony, you don't want to do that.
SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) This company's done me wrong, so I'm going let the world know what you and your dad have done to me. Simple as that.
MONDELLO: He places the wire around Hall's throat and makes it taut so that any strong movement...
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MONTGOMERY: (As Richard Hall) Tony, what is this?
MONDELLO: ...Will pull the trigger.
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SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) This here, Dick, is a dead man's wire. If you faint, stumble or try to run, this will blow your head off.
MONTGOMERY: (As Richard Hall) Now, listen, Tony. No one's seen us, OK? You've made your point.
SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) I'm just getting started.
MONDELLO: Indeed, he is. He calls the police, explains what he's done, then parades Hall, played by an increasingly panicked Dacre Montgomery, out on the street where there are not just cops, but a TV feature reporter who's just gotten very lucky.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What's going on? I'm hearing a robbery.
MYHA'LA: (As Linda Page) It looked like a white guy strapped a shotgun to another white guy's head.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) A shotgun?
MYHA'LA: (As Linda Page) I heard the name of the apartment complex that they're going to.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What apartment complex?
MYHA'LA: (As Linda Page) Show you on camera, and you'll let me report some real news for once. How about that?
MONDELLO: Everybody's fed up, which suits Kiritsis, who is determined, despite the title of the then-popular song, that this revolution will be televised.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEAD MAN'S WIRE")
SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) Is this on-air?
COLMAN DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) No, but it's being recorded.
MONDELLO: These days, it can seem as if cell phone cameras and the web are what make instant celebrity possible. Kiritsis marshaled the public's attention before that tech existed, like the guy who, a couple of years earlier, had shouted Attica in "Dog Day Afternoon," which this film resembles quite a bit. And that attention was the point. Kiritsis didn't just want his money back. He wanted a public apology. And when Richard talks on the phone to his dad, the mortgage company's fat-cat founder, played by Al Pacino, you realize what a crazy dream that is.
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AL PACINO: (As M.L. Hall) Apologize for what exactly, Richard?
MONTGOMERY: (As Richard Hall) Well, you know, possibly setting up a deal that wasn't in his interest.
(As Richard Hall) He's saying he knows that we were purposely waiting him out and defrauding him, and he wants to hear you admit that and say you're sorry, OK?
PACINO: (As M.L. Hall) He has a gun to your neck, son. Why are we the ones apologizing?
(As M.L. Hall) What? You have that Stockholm syndrome setting in you already?
MONDELLO: Filmmaker Gus Van Sant makes all of this crackle both with tension and with comic energy, especially with a smooth local radio guy Tony listens to.
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DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) I'm DJ Fred Temple.
MONDELLO: Played by Colman Domingo, Fred gets dragged in just as he's heading home for the day.
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DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) Good night, my brothers.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As James) Mr. Temple?
DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As James) Sir, you have a caller.
DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) I have dinner in 30 minutes, is what I have.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As James) We vetted it with the operator, confirmed and everything and...
DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) Brother, one day, you will understand that when you have a wife, dinner at 6:45 means dinner at 6:45, not 7 o'clock, definitely not 6:30, and absolutely not 6:46.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As James) He's asking to speak to you, the guy with the shotgun in the man's neck.
MONDELLO: Temple stops the elevator doors from closing.
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DOMINGO: (As Fred Temple) You should open with that, James.
MONDELLO: Public attention, of course, can be fleeting. Kiritsis sees himself, with some justification, as a common man standing up to a system rigged against folks like him.
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SKARSGARD: (As Tony Kiritsis) These people betrayed me. They set me up and schemed to ruin my life.
MONDELLO: If his feelings resonate today, it's because Van Sant has taken pains to make "Dead Man's Wire" not just briskly entertaining, but a timely reminder that when everyday folks get sold the American dream, there's often fine print that keeps it just out of reach. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED")
GIL SCOTT-HERON: The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox in four parts without commercial interruptions. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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