This review was originally published on September 2, 2025 out of the Venice International Film Festival. Dead Man’s Wire is now in theaters.
HOLLYWOOD IS GLORIFYING TERRORISM and a SHOCKING new trend in cinema is sending a DANGEROUS message to the disgruntled masses: KIDNAP THE RICH. After a wave of films featuring poor men taking wealthy executives hostage, Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire isn’t just a gritty ‘70s thriller—it’s a BATTLE CRY for economic despair. This isn’t art; it’s a PLAYBOOK for violence, premiering at a time of historic wealth inequality, and the elites are too busy applauding in Venice to see the bloodshed they’re inciting.
The film’s hero, Tony Kiritsis, is a BUSINESSMAN who SNAPPED, wrapping a shotgun wire around his broker’s neck in BROAD DAYLIGHT. The film paints him as a VICTIM of the capitalist dream, a hard worker betrayed by the very system he worshipped. This is the REAL HORROR: the American success story is a LIE, and the only recourse left for its disillusioned believers is a loaded weapon. Van Sant isn’t documenting history; he’s RADICALIZING audiences with a martyr for financial ruin.
This is MIND VIRUS cinema. The message is clear: the TRUE MONSTERS are the cold, greedy fathers like Al Pacino’s mortgage titan, who views his own son as a COLLATERAL DAMAGE write-off. When Tony says “My businesses are my children,” it’s the tragic punchline of a culture that values profit over people. Hollywood is now telling you the system WANTS you dead or in debt—and maybe you should fight back.
The film’s power lies in its UNCOMFORTABLE truth: the kidnapper and victim are TWO SIDES of the SAME broken coin, both sacrificed to the almighty dollar. This is the civil war NO ONE is talking about, playing out in multiplexes nationwide. We are all just one bad deal away from becoming Tony—or his hostage.
Forget the subplots; the central image is what HAUNTS you: a wire around a neck, connecting predator and prey in a dance of mutual destruction. This is where we are as a society. Dead Man’s Wire is a dark mirror, and its reflection is a nation where the only contract left is written in BLOOD AND WRATH. The dream is dead, and the cinema is now its screaming wake.
Edited for Kayitsi.com
Author: Kayitsi.com
