September 3, 2025

Al Pacino, Bill Skarsgård, Dacre Montgomery, Dead Man’s Wire, Gus Van Sant

Words by JANE CROWTHER


There’s a nice nod to Dog Day Afternoon in casting Al Pacino in this real-life hostage negotiation story of the little man breaking over a loan and sticking it to the mortgage company one frosty morning in Indianapolis. Gus Van Sant’s latest feels as though it’s come from the same era (impeccable seventies production design) and deals with similar feelings of frustration. 

In 1977, small-time land developer Tony Kiritsi (Bill Skarsgård) walked into the Meridian Mortgage Company HQ and took the son of the big cheese, Dick Hall (Dacre Montgomery) hostage – looping a ‘dead man’s wire’ around his neck. Attaching the wire to the trigger of a shotgun and to himself, Kiritsi’s crude booby-trap ensured that if he was felled, or his captive tried to escape, Hall would be killed instantly. Kiritsi was aggrieved that Meridian’s CEO (Pacino, with a molasses accent) had ruined his real-estate deals and caused his business to collapse. As cops and the local DJ (Colman Domingo) got involved, Indianapolis was gripped by the stand-off as Kiritsi holed up in his bomb-rigged apartment with Hall.

Van Sant taps into the dark humour of amiable mid-westerners negotiating a high-pressure situation as Tony and Dick are unfailingly polite to each other despite their situation, the cops personally know their perp and unbelievably cool DJ Fred Temple (Domingo, who was made for this role) has chats with Tony during the crisis. In the days before a more coordinated and tech response, the law enforcement and media approach to the situation seems almost quaint. Skarsgård is jittery-righteous as a man who believes that he is making a stand for many people crushed under the boot of big business, while Montgomery exudes the dejected calm of a man who’s got Daddy issues and has never been good enough for his flashy Pa, who continues with his vacation in Florida during the stand-off. 

With things to say about corporate America and social media (Kiritsi uses local TV and radio unchecked as a platform for his beliefs), Dead Man’s Wire is both a history lesson on a largely forgotten incident and a reflection on whether we’ve matured as a society since. It’s also a welcome return to form for Van Sant.


Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photography courtesy of STEFANIA ROSINI/ELEVATED FILMS
Dead Man’s Wire premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival
Released in cinemas at a later date

January 3, 2025

amy adams, arleigh snowden, marielle heller, nightbitch, scoot mcnairy

Words by JANE CROWTHER


Though it was released on New Year’s Day you may not have made it to the cinema to catch the latest potent fever dream from Robert Eggers – but you should make it your resolution to do so. Darkly designed to fill a big screen (it opens by descending an audience into pitch blackness and sounds of distress), the filmmaker’s reinterpretation of FW Murnau’s 1922 take on Dracula is a crepuscular, filthy and visceral vision of sexual obsession and the plight of women who speak up against predators. Yes, it’s about bloodsuckers and staking, but with current headlines it’s inescapable to not see a correlation between the claims of a young woman (Lily-Rose Depp) being dismissed and her realisation that only her own bravery will stop abuse.

amy adams, arleigh snowden, marielle heller, nightbitch, scoot mcnairy

Depp plays Ellen, a new wife to Nicholas Hoult’s solicitor in 1838 Germany, whose pallid complexion and nervous disposition are caused by the night terrors she suffers as a creeping, shadowy presence stalks her. When hubby is called away to attend to the needs of a client in Carpathia, a count ‘with one foot in the grave’, Ellen fears losing herself in the nightmares and moves in with friends (Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corrin). Meanwhile, her husband undertakes the six week journey to the snowy mountains where gypsies warn of evil and Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) lurks in his inhospitable castle with nails like a Guinness World Record holder and a truly disquieting, fetid voice that is the aural equivilent of damp, decay, death. The fresh blood that willingly enters his home sets Orlok on a course of destruction to Ellen that takes in plague, exorcism and monster hunting courtesy of Willem Defoe.

bill skarsgård, lily-rose depp, nicholas hoult, aaron taylor-johnson, willem dafoe, robert eggers, emma corrin, nosferatu

Though the story may be familiar, Eggers’ reliably striking visuals are not; Skarsgard’s creature design is disgusting enough you’ll be sure you can smell him, while the cinematography recalls a Vermeer painting – characters often framed in doorways, tree-tunnels, gateways to heartstoppingly beautiful effect. Set pieces such as Ellen’s possession (Depp contorting herself, eyes as large as saucers), her husband’s welcome in Carpathia (thundering horse hooves in the snowy gloaming) and a city laid waste by disease are grotesque, gorgeous, grim. The detail of costume, set design and sound is richly layered, while Eggers’ cast are pitch perfect. Skarsgard is cornering the market in terrifying characters you can’t shake while Hoult’s terror in Transylvania is palpable. But the film belongs to Depp; as fragile as glass, tremulous and bruised – but also erotic, feral and ultimately, kickass.  

Viewers who are not fond of rats or scuttling things might find Nosferatu intolerable, but for everyone else Egger provides a thrumming discomfort of terrible beauty that will haunt as certainly as Orlok himself.

bill skarsgård, lily-rose depp, nicholas hoult, aaron taylor-johnson, willem dafoe, robert eggers, emma corrin, nosferatu

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Nosferatu is in cinemas now