Dead Man’s Wire Trailer: Gus Van Sant Narrates a Real Kidnapping Tale

      Gus Van Sant makes his return with his first feature film in seven years, premiering Dead Man’s Wire at the Venice Film Festival, with plans for it to be released before the end of the year. The cast includes Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, Myha’la, Colman Domingo, and Al Pacino. The new distributor, Row K Entertainment, will begin an awards-qualifying run on December 12, leading to a theatrical release on January 9. Ahead of the premiere, the initial full-length trailer has been unveiled.

      The synopsis reads: “Based on true events, the 1977 kidnapping of a well-known banker captivates the nation and transforms the kidnapper into an outlaw folk hero. As media coverage intensifies, the standoff becomes a dramatic display of desperation, defiance, and ambiguous justice, striking a chord that still resonates today.”

      Rory O’Connor noted in his review from Venice, “Gus Van Sant returns with Dead Man’s Wire, a film captured in the same late-70s tones as Kelly Reichardt’s recent masterpiece The Mastermind, focusing similarly on unlawful figures and the complexity of a good criminal. However, Van Sant's film is much more inclined to embrace genre conventions compared to Reichardt’s brilliant subversion. Bill Skarsgård delivers a captivating performance as the very real Tony Kiritsis, who kidnapped his mortgage broker in 1977 after he failed to pay for a potentially valuable piece of land. Van Sant reimagines this story in a manner reminiscent of Dog Day Afternoon: an offbeat and stranger-than-fiction tale about misguided good intentions. It’s quite the entertaining ride.”

      Watch the trailer below.