Dacre Montgomery, Bill Skarsgard
“DEAD MAN’S WIRE” My rating: B (In theaters)
105 minutes | MPAA rating: R
The ghost of “Dog Day Afternoon” haunts Gus van Sant’s “Dead Man’s Wire,” a criminal yarn about one man’s fight against basically everybody.
Like Sidney Lumet’s 1975 classic, “Dead Man…” is based on a real event, yet another case of life one-upping art.
One morning in 1977, Indianapolis resident Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgard) walked into the headquarters off the Meridian Mortgage Company. He was a familiar face; the friendly girl at the front desk paid no attention to the long, narrow box Tony carried.
Maybe she figured it contained rolled up blueprints. After all, Tony was a long-time customer who had borrowed money to design and build a shopping center on property he owned on the edge of town.
Nope. Inside was a shotgun fitted with a wire loop at the muzzle. Once in the executive offices Tony confronted Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery), son of the company’s owner. He slipped the wire noose around Richard’s neck and informed him that any movement would automatically discharge a full load of buckshot into his head.
Then Tony started working the phones, determined to inform the world of the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of the Hall family — especially Richard’s father M.L. (Al Pacino), who was off on a vacation.
The standoff unfolded over several days. Tony talked a local radio DJ (Colman Domingo) into serving as his spokesman and p.r. agent. Meanwhile the cops — especially hardboiled detective Michael Grable (Cary Elwes) — tried to satisfy Tony’s impossible demands while avoiding mayhem that would be televised nationally.
Austin Kolodney’s screenplay walks a fine line between real tension and oddball humor. Tony may be crazy, but he talks a good talk, and there flashes of absurdism throughout.
The key to Skarsgard’s performance is his ability to make us identify with Tony (haven’t all of us felt ripped off at some time by a big impersonal institution?) even as we squirm at the dangerous situation he’s created.
He’s nicely matched by Montgomery, whom you may recognize from “Stranger Things.” Initially Dick is just a quaking blob of fear, but gradually the character’s survival instinct kicks in and he presents himself as a sort of collaborator.
And Pacino is delightfully hateful as a financial bigwig who would rather sacrifice his own son than cough up the restitution Tony is demanding.
Throughout Van Sant exhibits a master’s hand in modulating the film’s pacing and emotional tones.
Timothee Chalamet
“MARTY SUPREME” My rating: C+ (In theaters)
149 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Is it possible to love a performance while borderline hating the movie that surrounds it?
In the case of Timothee Chalamet and “Marty Supreme” the answer is perplexed yes.
“Marty Supreme” is director Josh Safdie’s followup to “Uncut Gems,” a film I compared to being screamed at for two hours by an irate New York cab driver. Once again I left more exhausted than exhilarated.
This may be a minority opinion. My critical brethren seem to adore the very things that turned me off. Well, you know…horse races.
The screenplay by Sadie and Ronald Bronstein is based (very loosely) on the career of Marty Mauser, a working class New Yorker who in the early 1950s was a rising star in the world of table tennis.
As played by Chalamet, Marty is a juggernaut of ambition and selfishness. He’s a pretty good Ping Pong player, but his real skill seems to be that of con man and canny manipulator. (Also, he has acne, spectacles and a skinny mustache that makes him look uncomfortably like a very young Robert Crumb.)
As the film begins Marty is working in a his uncle’s shoe store, sleeping with old (and married) childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) and scheming to fly to London for a big ping pong competition. He’ll lie, cheat, steal…whatever it takes.
Once across the pond he impresses the sport’s fans with his paddle skills; his arrogant personality, on the other hand, keeps him in hot water. Refusing to bed down at the cheap hotel he’s provided, he cons his way into a suite at the ritziest joint in town.
There he spots one-time movie goddess Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow) and kicks his seduction machine into high gear. It’s typical of Marty that while he’s schtupping Kay he’s drumming up financial backing from her vaguely scary deep-pockets husband (“Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary in a way more than adequate acting debut).
Aside from Marty’s singleminded ambition there’s not much plot here…or rather too many plots. “Marty Supreme” is always shooting off on some crazed tangent.
There’s a subplot in which Rachel claims to be preggers by Marty (he’s not happy) and claims she’s being beaten by her husband (Emory Cohen). In another a lost dog becomes a pawn in a very bloody custody battle. Marty and a colleague become Ping Pong sharks, descending on suburban towns to challenge the local talent while betting heavily on themselves. They narrowly avoid getting lynched.
There’s murder and mayhem. (Penn Jillette is virtually unrecognizable as a shot-gun toting, in-bred rural creep.) Close calls.
And through it all Marty remains unrepentantly self centered. Chalamet gives a breathless performance — which is a problem because the film never slows down enough to let us catch our breath. It’s just one instance of bad behavior piled on another.
And this goes on for 2 1/2 hours! Some long films fly by. This one just kept throwing the same heavy beats over and over again.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 