Bill Skarsgard's 2025 Crime Thriller With A 91% Rotten Tomatoes Score Is Streaming On Netflix

What if I said your next big movie night comes courtesy of a mustached Bill Skarsgård, the newest Gus Van Sant flick you might've not even heard about, and one seriously killer concept involving a hostage situation gone wrong? The "Good Will Hunting" director returned to the big screen last year with "Dead Man's Wire," a retelling of a real-life crisis situation in 1977. In the film, disgruntled commercial developer Tony Kiritsis (played by Skarsgård) marches into the office of his mortgage broker with a hidden shotgun, holds his hostage at gunpoint and wires him to a "dead man's line" that would fire the weapon in the event of an escape attempt or police capture (or death), and seeks justice against a mortgage system that unfairly targeted both himself and countless other blue-collar workers.

This is certainly familiar territory for Van Sant, who's known for his loose collection of movies referred to as the "Death Trilogy" similarly based on true stories. (The trilogy in question includes the experimental film "Gerry," "Elephant," and "Last Days.") What sets "Dead Man's Wire" apart, however, is its subject matter that's somehow both timely and timeless all at once. A system rigged against the lower classes and made to benefit the wealthy is hardly anything new, but that can't help but strike a specific chord at a moment when, say, gas prices are soaring while the White House stages a gaudy UFC fight on its front lawn. Suddenly, a desperate act by a desperate man like Tony Kiritsis doesn't seem quite so absurd.

Luckily, fans of both Van Sant and crime thrillers in general can catch all of this high-wire action for themselves. "Dead Man's Wire," which has a 91% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes to boot, is currently available on Netflix.

Let nobody ever accuse Gus Van Sant, the mind behind that (mostly) ill-regarded "Psycho" remake, of lacking in ambition. "Dead Man's Wire" could've easily settled for being a straightforward movie all about the heroism of law enforcement against the most out-of-control members of society. What Van Sant and writer Austin Kolodney do instead is a testament to just how nuanced and complex and intersectional this real-life event truly was.

Based on the 2018 documentary "Dead Man's Line," the film adaptation centers on Bill Skarsgård's Tony Kiritsis as a man both in over his head and with nothing to lose. Tony's well-founded gripes stem from his treatment by rich mortgage broker M.L. Hall (Al Pacino in a small but memorable role). Believing himself to have been cheated out of his money due to predatory practices, Tony realizes his main target is enjoying yet another vacation and instead meets Hall's son Richard (Dacre Montgomery). While his demands are fairly typical of any story in this genre, his main point of contention is an apology and admission of guilt from M.L. Hall and his company — an acknowledgement that his crusade is just and necessary. Through tertiary players like Colman Domingo's local radio DJ Fred Temple and reporter Linda Page (Myha'la), the scope expands from a simple cops-and-kidnappers story between Tony and Cary Elwes' unsympathetic Detective Michael Grable to one about capitalism as a whole and how we engage with so many other crime thrillers of this ilk.

Those familiar with the true story know how all this is destined to end, but viewers experiencing this saga for the first time are in for a ride. "Dead Man's Wire" is now streaming on Netflix.