Dallas Fisher

Dead Man’s Wire is our second movie in recent months inspired by a real life crime that gained media attention, the first being Roofman. This time around, things are a little more serious while still having a dumb criminal at the forefront.

As is typical with most movies, I don’t watch trailers. So, going into this one the only thing I had my mind was John Q meets Dog Day Afternoon, based off a google description. The only reason I was thinking the latter was because of Al Pacino’s involvement. Before I get into specifics, I came out of this only thinking of it as a mobile Phone Booth (2002). Where that classic film will stand the test of time for its era, Colin Farrell, and Joel Schumacher, Dead Man’s Wire will fall to the wayside for Gus Van Sant, the entire cast, and the year of its release.

I think my biggest issue with this movie is that it takes something that I’m sure was super engaging and scary if you were around the area at the time it happened, and makes it uninteresting. Outside of the main story of the kidnapping, they throw in perspectives of the rookie journalist and a radio DJ (which I know were an integral part of the story), but the way it’s handled and edited makes everything feel scattered. There was tons of promise of a story with its dramatic set up but ultimately spreads it thin. I think this is the perfect tale to be told by a newscaster over a couple days, instead of in a full length feature.

I will say, with its 1977 setting it does a really good job feeling like a time capsule. I actually enjoyed seeing the townspeople within the movie get caught up in the happenings of their home, as that aspect gave it a real life feeling. The other thing that gave it that feeling was the spot on costume and production design. Those details help the story maintain control when the direction gets a little stubborn. I’ll be fair and say there is one great thing about this movie, the performances. I had so much fun with the over the top performances from everyone involved. They’ll make you forget about this story that basically feels like a Batman story without masks or clown makeup.

Al Pacino is barely in this but he brings forth the most bizarre and spot on southern accent, which will go down as one of the best of his career. Coleman Domingo also brings his perfect real life voice to the role he was born to play. I apologize if it’s disrespectful to wait until the final paragraphs to even mention the lead in Bill Skarsgard, but we’re here now. His eyes once again chose this role for him, and watching him play a man with nothing to lose was mesmerizing. I understand why he didn’t have more to do physically, but his points are made abundantly clear with his acting choices. I can also happily say Dacre Montgomery kills it as a man chained to one of the cooler on screen weapons in years. Even though I loved a majority of the performances, they all felt like they were in different realms.

I have to end this by saying the first thing that came to mind as the credits rolled, sometimes real life isn’t interesting enough to be turned into a movie.

6/10