Dead Man's Wire

Watched at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

Gus Van Sant has always been a fascinating director as his works on Elephant, Good Will Hunting, Gerry, To Die For, Last Days, and Paranoid Park are some of my favorite indie art-house movies ever. Since his last movie in seven years, Van Sant brings a slick, tense and comedic tale about the kidnapping and crime moment by Tony Kiritsis and the tension surrounding the event.

Throughout, the production designs, Van Sant's direction and the atmosphere is strong. It helps build a sense of it's time period and the characters that are situated in this tense moment. What Van Sant succeeds is grasping the characters motives, understand their personalities and see through them as human. Paralleling themes about the corrupted and flawed system behind the mortgage and money business, and the conflicts it creates. The writing, while it is pretty straight-forward and predictable, is solid as some of the themes and concepts explored are interesting.

All of the performances are pretty good. Bill Skarsard is absolutely fantastic, alongside with the rest of the cast members. I do wish some of the pacing in the second act and certain dialogue moments could improve as some of the moments did feel a bit overlong or strangely paced at times. But overall, it's nice to see Van Sant still got it with his talents.

Just saw this movie at TIFF. One of the best movies I have seen in a while. Two hours went insanely fast. The acting was sensational, especially the main two characters. Bill was Oscar worthy in his role as the protagonist. Gus noted in the Q&A that he likes actors ad-libbing. Apparently milk with ice was one of those!