Dead Man's Wire

 

Director Gus van Sant

van Sant on the set with Bill Skarsgård

Pulitzer prize-winning photo of Tony Kiritsis and Richard Hall

DEAD MAN’S WIRE           B-                                                                                                  USA  (105 mi)  2025  d: Gus van Sant

I’m a goddamn national hero and don’t you forget it.                                                                  —Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård)

This film reads like a fictionalized documentary, updating an explosive story making all the headlines in 1977 when Tony Kiritsis kidnapped at gunpoint the president of a mortgage company, wiring him to a shotgun pointed at his head and holding him captive in his own apartment for three days, claiming the mortgage company deliberately sabotaged his 17-acre investment property project of developing a reasonably priced shopping center, believing they knowingly convinced the developer to build elsewhere on property they owned.  In a rampage filled with expletives, he instantly became a media darling when he aired his grievances over the television and radio airwaves, becoming something of a folk hero for some, like a little guy finally standing up the heavily-connected giants of finance, finding himself caught in a post-Watergate world of mistrust and greed that would only be amplified further in the Reagan years a decade later, while faith in core institutions has faded even further today.  All taking place in the Midwest heartland of Indianapolis, the story reads like a plea for vigilante justice that pre-dates all the sensationalism of social media coverage of today, like the arrest of Luigi Mangione for shooting and killing the CEO of a large healthcare conglomerate, with van Sant satirizing a society that allows people to be exploited and then applauds them when they react in extreme ways, a reminder of how much worse things have gotten, as populist anger is reflected in contemporary headlines, with some wondering if these outrageous acts can actually be justified.  Van Sant was born in Louisville, Kentucky, where this film was actually shot, also the birthplace of Hunter S. Thompson, whose groundbreaking Gonzo journalism unleashed a torrent of first-person subjectivity that remade the media in the 60’s and 70’s, though van Sant has long been associated with Pacific Northwest filmmaking, aligned with the city of Portland, along with fellow indie director Kelly Reichardt, crafting compelling portraits of outsiders and outlaws, where the works he’s most associated with are New Queer Movement cornerstones MALA NOCHE (1986), DRUGSTORE COWBOY (1989), and My Own Private Idaho (1991), all shot in Portland, the star-driven GOOD WILL HUNTING (1997) and To Die For (1995), the more experimental GERRY (2002), ELEPHANT (2003), LAST DAYS (2005), and Paranoid Park (2007), and the biographic MILK (2008), which this film most closely resembles, as it’s based on real-life circumstances.  Coming from a long line of scheming, delusional “losers” in van Sant films, from Matt Dillon’s DRUGSTORE COWBOY to Nicole Kidman’s toxic, fame-seeking, TV reporter in To Die For, alternating between experimental films and more mainstream-oriented, star-driven projects, this film will recall Jodie Foster’s Money Monster (2016), but has a more direct connection to Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975), with Al Pacino, the appealing young star of that film, reappearing here in a significant role, where it also seems influenced by Alan J. Pakula’s psychological suspense thriller, Klute (1971), which ushered in the era of 70’s paranoid conspiracy theory movies.  While it’s brazenly disturbing and mildly amusing, with the director returning to feature films after a seven-year absence, viewers may find themselves feeling a disconnect with the central protagonist, as taking things to this extreme reveal a greater underlying problem that is never addressed, leaving a giant hole in the heart of the picture, where criminality and bizarre psychological desperation are inevitably linked.  There is a curious musical choice, Labi Siffre - Cannock Chase (Official Lyric Video) YouTube (4:05), which was also heard in Joachim Trier’s 2025 Top Ten List #1 Sentimental Value  (Affeksjonsverdi), sounding very much like America’s Horse with No Name, America - Horse With No Name (1972) (Official Music Video) YouTube (4:08), while music of Deodato, Roberta Flack, Yes, Harper’s Bizarre, and Gil Scott-Heron add subversive undertones.      

At the center of the picture is Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård, Stellan’s son, doing his best Michael Shannon imitation, is ten years younger than the figure he is portraying), seen arriving at the Meridian Mortgage Company in the early morning after falling behind on his mortgage payments through predatory loans, convinced that the company has deceived him, foreclosing on a mortgage while depriving him of the income to pay it.  He has an appointment with the owner and CEO M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), but he’s out of town, so instead he’s pleasantly greeted by his son Richard (Dacre Montgomery), the firm’s president, walking him back to his office, where things get a little dicey, as the package Tony is carrying is a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun that has been rigged with two wires, one around Richard’s neck, with another “deadman’s switch” from the trigger to his own neck, Dead Man's Wire Movie Clip - Getting Started (2026) YouTube (1:13).  Walking gingerly through the building, ordering the security guards away, he forces Hall out of the building and onto the streets in near-zero weather with snow on the ground, surrounded by policemen and journalists, where they can’t just shoot him, as it will trigger the shotgun, Dead Man's Wire - Hand's official clip YouTube (1:04), so they’re in a violent stand-off until Kiritsis commandeers a police car and drives to his home in the Crestwood Village apartments, which he claims is rigged with explosives.  A few other details happen simultaneously, as a local TV news crew led by a young and still unrecognized Linda Page (Myha’la), who is not yet an on-air personality, as at the time there were still a shockingly small number of black women broadcasters seen on-air, gets wind of what’s happening and films the incident, drawing her network’s attention, while a police detective Michael Grable (Cary Elwes) also arrives on the scene, holding officers at bay, attempting to remain calm amidst this inflammatory situation before it could get even uglier.  Like any good heist movie or police procedural, the principle players are slowly introduced, becoming recognizable presences onscreen, including the charismatic “voice of Indianapolis,” Fred Temple (Colman Domingo), a revered jazz radio host who regularly interacts with callers, like a voice of the people, and is the epitome of cool.  When he receives word of a live kidnapping in progress, with the kidnapper reaching out to speak to him, it comes as a huge surprise, Dead Man's Wire Movie Clip - Open With That (2026) YouTube (58 seconds).  Temple is the voice of calm and reason, who unwittingly becomes a facilitator at ending the standoff, while Kiritsis remains a hothead throughout, though he goes out of his way to be polite to the people he knows or respects, like Fred Temple, First Time Caller Scene | DEAD MAN'S WIRE (2025) Movie ... YouTube (3:53), and for all the threats and profanity-charged outlandishness, he does have occasional quiet moments of respectability, frequently apologizing for his crude language.  But he’s more of an attention-grabbing caricature than a real human being, as his ever-evolving portrait is a collaboration of police work, news reports, and callers from ordinary people, each seeing things differently, creating a kaleidoscopic, elusively skewed perspective, a precursor of how the Internet and cellphones have changed how news is presented, yet it’s hard to find a film more reflective of the inequitable times we currently live in.

Written by first-time screenwriter Austin Kolodney, who comes from a comedy writing background, having written for Comedy Central, yet the characters are imperfectly realized, with little to no backstory, and while understandable for the part they play in the story, there’s simply no depth to any of them, making it difficult to engage with this picture.  While M.L. Hall is vacationing in Florida, with Kiritsis insisting on speaking to him, demanding an apology, along with $5 million dollars in compensation and a promise of no prosecution, Dead Man's Wire Exclusive Movie Clip - Power (2026) YouTube (1:33), Hall’s cold indifference is built into the film, fueled by his own sleazy, larger-than-life ego, never wanting to get his hands dirty, yet his decisions drive the entire scenario, completely disconnected not only from his mortgage holders, but also his own family, which includes the callous disregard and willing sacrifice of his own son Richard, as he’s willing to allow him to become collateral damage rather than apologize directly to Kiritsis in order to free him, Dead Man's Wire Movie Clip - Apologize (2026) YouTube (1:10).  This doesn’t sit well with viewers (or Richard, by the way), or the radio listeners, holding him in utter contempt, much like the equally disconnected billionaires of today who simply refuse to ever admit to any wrongdoing, yet are responsible for some of the worst and most atrocious human behavior.  Watching this play out is like witnessing an ongoing train wreck, with Kiritsis always having the final word, delivering obscenity-fueled monologues on the air, with footage of all-American hero John Wayne appearing on his television screen, where his People’s Choice Award acceptance speech is interrupted, cutting straight to live coverage of Kiritsis, creating a true-life interplay of outlaw entertainment with news of the day, where he’s simply much more relatable to the man on the street than the overly privileged CEO’s of the world who are used to getting their way and always want to control the narrative.  This was originally scheduled to be filmed in 2018, with Werner Herzog as director and Nicolas Cage as the lead actor, but the production lingered, eventually needing someone who could make the film quickly, so van Sant took over the project, crafting a 1970’s-inspired visual language rooted in handheld realism and cinema vérité.  Shot in just 19 days by Arnaud Potier in something of a run-and-gun production of an American Dream gone wrong, it triggers a moment in time when media expanded their power while also probing into the excavation of contemporary mythmaking, elevating one man’s misguided sense of heroism into a protracted class struggle, happening in small town America where things like this rarely occur, though the mother of all exceptions to the rule would have to be the Truman Capote journalistic exposé of the heartbreaking murders in Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood (1967).  With epic rants and sardonic twists, and with van Sant exploring the shadowy psychological corners of a life-and-death experience, the emotional rollercoaster takes us on a wild ride, but where it all leads is open to question.  There is an existing 2018 documentary film by Alan Berry and Mark Enochs (local Indianapolis guys who are listed as consultants on this film) entitled DEAD MAN’S LINE, Dead Man's Line | The True Story of Tony Kiritsis (Full ... full movie on YouTube (1:37:39), which documents the rise of voyeuristic TV news and the 24-hour news cycles, with the filmmakers sending Kolodney police reports, newspaper clippings, and video coverage of the original incident, 'Dead Man's Wire' revisits infamous Indianapolis hostage ... YouTube (4:06), with actual footage playing out over the end credits, where a photograph of Kiritsis with the rifle pointed at the back of the neck of Richard Hall won the Pulitzer Prize in 1978 (A Pulitzer Picture).

Scarecrow

 

Director Jerry Schatzberg

Gene Hackman 

Schatzberg on the set with Al Pacino and Gene Hackman

Vilmos Zsigmond and László Kovács

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCARECROW           A-                                                                                                              USA  (112 mi)  1973  ‘Scope

Jerry Schatzberg is a filmmaker you’ve likely never heard of, making films like Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970), a strange and quirky film starring Faye Dunaway as an haute couture fashion model that descends into the depths of madness, yet he was there in the 70’s when American movies may have never been more daring, an era fondly remembered as a golden age for American cinema.  Schatzberg’s greatest unseen film remains SCARECROW (1973), a brilliant character-driven piece about two underdogs in search of a better life that evolves into a road movie with Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, a couple of unlikely outsiders that end up hitchhiking on the road and riding the rails together, developing an unusual rapport that touched a nerve with the American counterculture at the time, though there’s nothing counterculture about either one of these characters, yet the dizzyingly offbeat direction the film takes most certainly is, like the complex yet thoroughly unconventional character study shown in Bob Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces (1970).  Over the course of the 1960’s and into the 1970’s, Hollywood fell in love with oddballs, eccentrics, outcasts, misfits, and people who just couldn’t—or wouldn’t—fit into mainstream American society.  Made on a miniscule budget of $800,000, the film defies easy categorization, as it simply goes places most films don’t dare to go in an eccentric tale of friendship, heartbreak, and trauma, with superb cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond whose expressive widescreen panoramas capture the sheer enormity of the country, featuring overpowering performances that are among the best in their respective careers, winner of the top prize at Cannes when the Grand Prix Award temporarily replaced the Palme d’Or from 1964 – 74.  While it was recognized at Cannes, it was promptly ignored at the American box office and by the Academy of Arts and Sciences, garnering no Oscar nominations (the studio instead pushed William Friedkin’s THE EXORCIST), though Gene Hackman has stated that this often overlooked performance is his personal favorite, with both Hackman and Pacino claiming this is one of their favorite films, each providing a wonderful naturalism in a freewheeling adventure filled with sweeping vistas, endless roads, dilapidated cars, and ordinary people, along with frequent long takes, a verité style allowing plenty of room for improvisation, giving this a Cassavetes-inspired indie edginess.  For Hackman, he typically goes in and out of character with each individual shot, but Pacino stays in character on the set for the entire duration of the shoot, which apparently drove some people nuts.  Schatzberg has indicated that Pacino disliked the final cut of the film and didn’t speak to him for years afterwards, while Hackman vowed to take on more commercial projects moving forward.  The road movie may have been the defining genre of the 1970’s, perhaps best exemplified by Dennis Hopper’s counterculture fantasy gone wrong, Easy Rider (1969), or the bare-bones expression of an achingly lonely life on the road revealed in Monte Hellman’s critically dismissed Two-Lane Blacktop (1971).  Shot on location, capturing a memorable series of back roads, train yards, and forgotten towns, yet despite the mythical promise of the “open road,” romanticized visions of the American West often give rise to a directionless isolation, as loneliness pervades the narrow, deserted highway in the film’s poetic opening, an improbable meeting place for Gene Hackman and Al Pacino’s drifters, Scarecrow, by Jerry Schatzberg (1973) - Opening scene (with ... YouTube (7:45), recalling how the desert seemed to swallow up a broken-down Harry Dean Stanton in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984).  Before shooting, both Hackman and Pacino dressed as hobos and hitchhiked through California to get into their characters.  In the same year, released just a month apart, Vilmos Zsigmond also shot Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (1973), which dominated all the headlines, having previously filmed Altman’s lusciously photographed McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and Peter Fonda’s highly visual acid western The Hired Hand (1971), while this film was not just overlooked but thoroughly dismissed.  Vilmos Zsigmond and László Kovács, who met as film students in Hungary, were known for their unique visual styles, becoming legendary cinematographers who helped shape the look of American movies in the 1970’s, literally turning cinematography into an art form.  

Amidst the heightened optimism of the 60’s, with the promise of racial equality, women’s rights, and social transformation, there are few films that epitomize the end of that failed dream more than Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la Putain) (1973), which is essentially the end of hope from Paris 1968, but that film’s got nothing on this one, which is as dramatically heartbreaking and downbeat as anything from the times, plunging us into a world of emotional bleakness and unending despair, the likes of which we rarely see realized with such an uncompromising vision.  This is a hard film to forget, filled with gut-wrenching performances, taking us into unexpected territory that few films are willing to explore, none featuring such big name actors (it was originally intended to star Bill Cosby and Jack Lemmon), yet it’s a blistering experience that will leave you feeling aching and bruised, where you’re just not the same afterwards, having your world upended, but the depth of the experience is unmistakable.   It’s fair to say that it’s been a while, if ever, that you’ve seen a film like this, as it’s authentic, entirely original, and emotionally devastating.  Made just prior to Sidney Lumet’s more popular SERPICO (1973) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), a year after Pacino appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER (1972), having worked with Schatzberg earlier in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971), and a year before Hackman appeared in Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) or Arthur Penn’s Night Moves (1975), having already won an Academy Award for William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971), this couldn’t be a more drastic detour away from that more flamboyant style of Hollywood filmmaking, plunging us into a myriad of conflicting emotions.  Not exactly a buddy movie, yet it is an enduring friendship, where Hackman and Pacino are onscreen together playing off each other for nearly the entire duration of the film, creating extraordinary moments, like the best moments you’d see onstage, recalling Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, making this a uniquely riveting experience.  Written by first-time screenwriter Garry Michael White, a graduate of the Goodman Theater School of Drama in Chicago, it opens on an empty road in the middle of nowhere as we’re first introduced to Max (Gene Hackman, who died in February 2025, where this film pays a tribute to him) as he makes his way down a rolling California hill before fumbling through a barbed-wire fence, then dusting himself off as he finds the road, but he’s being watched by another man from behind a tree, Francis (Al Pacino), who greets him in a friendly manner, but he’s completely ignored by Max, who walks right past him, both eager to hitch a ride.  As tumbleweeds blow past them, they are dwarfed by the immensity of the landscape and the silence that envelops them.  Both competing for that rare car driving past, they end up waiting for most of the day, where the ice is finally broken when Francis offers him his last match to light a cigar stub perpetually dangling out of Max’s mouth.  The somewhat clownish Francis, an eternal optimist, dressed in a peacoat, has been at sea for five years, absurdly seen carrying a boxed unisex lamp in his arms at all times, like a security blanket, a gift for the child he has never seen, wrapped in a red bow, completely unaware if it’s a boy or girl, yet he has regularly been sending money to the mother in Detroit, where he hopes to make amends.  Short-tempered Max, on the other hand, a blustery figure combatively filled with an indescribable inner rage, has just spent six years in San Quintin for assault, whose presence is defined by wearing multiple layers of clothing, where his bedtime ritual is absurdly taking off each shirt, one at a time, now tasting his first days of freedom, carrying a small notebook in his hands which has the details of all of his plans, where he believes opening a car wash in Pittsburgh is the answer to all his prayers, and with the help of Francis, they can go into business together.  At one point they hitch a ride with a hippie couple in a Volkswagen, yet the sound of screaming babies hilariously sends them right back out the door again.   

An improbable friendship is formed, bonded by the allure of the American Dream, however elusive it may feel, but when Max makes a plan, he sticks to it, as if it’s his way of assuring himself there’s order in his life, while the more carefree Francis appears to be the more flexible of the two, easily drifting into the role of comic relief, which is how he diffuses volatile situations, while Max prefers to fight any and all obstacles standing before him.  It’s an interesting dynamic, forged by a common goal, but their immense personalities are front and center, Francis the accommodator, and Max the fighter, and it follows them wherever they go, Scarecrow (1973) -- (Movie Clip) The Crows Are Laughing ... YouTube (3:57).  Owing a debt to John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, with the gruff wiser guy protecting the simpler, innocent one, both men locked into their respective personas as we follow them through a series of back roads, roadside bars, and diners, creating a moving portrait of a striking American landscape.  One of the most perfect illustrations of American cinema’s fearless ambitions in the 1970’s, it owes a debt to John Schlesinger’s MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969), particularly the unrelentingly bleak look at the seedy underbelly of American life which is undeniably disturbing, but the weighty performances of Hackman, a consummate everyman, and the more naïve Pacino, like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight before them, make it difficult to turn away.  Perhaps the film is less about two men chasing their dreams than it is about the difficulties of returning to a life they abandoned a long time ago, offering a requiem for broken dreams.  Riding the rails, they head east to Denver to visit Max’s sister Coley (Dorothy Tristan) in her “flower” house, a remnant of the 60’s counterculture, whose roommate Frenchy (Ann Wedgeworth) is easy on the eyes, not the brightest bulb on the block, but her emotional accessibility and sexual allure sends signals to Max, who has been locked up far too long, providing a needed outlet and emotional release.  A celebratory dinner provides one of the best scenes of the film, especially the way the song lyrics completely capture the essence of female vulnerability in a male-dominated landscape, featuring Aretha Franklin’s uncredited [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman [2021 Remaster] YouTube (2:44), a jukebox song heard in a crowded bar, with both men dancing with the women when a ruckus breaks out, creating pandemonium, which is a common occurrence in this film, where tenuous moments can turn supercharged in no time at all, creating a roller coaster of shifting emotions which pretty much defines this film, where every scene seems to tap into raw emotion.  This sequence only turns more hysterical, quickly growing out of control, but eventually the police are called and the two men are hauled off to jail for a month.  Max blames Francis and refuses to speak to him in the joint, harboring a grudge, sending him into the open arms of Riley (Richard Lynch), a trustee prisoner who wedges his way between the two men, taking Francis under his wing, recommending easy work assignments, while sticking Max on the least desirable work detail, shoveling pig slop.  This is a perfect example of a dream gone bad, with Riley feigning friendship while manipulating Francis into having sex with him, and when he refuses, he beats the living tar out of him, leaving him a bloody mess afterwards.  Max quickly turns the tables on him and exacts his revenge, where the fight scene is shot from a crane shot high above, where they look like tiny insignificant creatures, a framing device that was originally used to shoot a prolonged outdoor fistfight sequence between Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston in William Wyler’s sprawling western THE BIG COUNTRY (1958), where they are just tiny specks on the ground engulfed by an immense landscape. 

Schatzberg was a trained photographer before he became a filmmaker, where his photographs were centered on 60’s pop culture, capturing off-moments of relaxed details, featuring the Beatles in red Christmas garb, the Rolling Stones in drag, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (he was close friends with Tate five years before she married Polanski, and did a series of photographs of her in a bathtub), Catherine Deneuve, and Bob Dylan (that’s his slightly blurry yet iconic photograph on the cover of Blonde On Blonde in 1966).  His pictures of Bob Dylan, Edie Sedgwick, and Anne St. Marie are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and exhibited in museums around the world.  He was a latecomer to the movies, making his first feature at the age of 43, yet he had a way of putting actors and models at ease, capturing them in moments of vulnerability and tenderness, which this film excels at.  While the road film exemplifies the “outsider” sensibility that typified the period, Francis is clearly not the same after Denver, as the prison beating has robbed him of his innocence, rarely smiling anymore, where that carefree manner is gone, instead absorbed in his own thoughts, with Max making a concerted effort to loosen him up and make him laugh, as he’s taking himself much too seriously now.  Having undergone personal transformations, their positions have shifted now, with Max viewing himself as his protector.   Fresh from the work farm, Max and Francis are drinking the day away in a bar when Max gets into a row with another patron and is about to resume his old impulsive habits, with Francis sadly making his way to the exit, wanting no part in it, which stops Max in his tracks, suddenly shifting his style, becoming more accommodating, where he does a little impromptu striptease with all those layers of clothing, an unforgettable, rough-and-tumble bar sequence that has the customers in stitches, becoming a joyously communal event that leaves Francis even further alienated, trying to get a smile on that stone face, as this performance is all for his benefit, showing restraint, possibly for the very first time in his life, Gene Hackman's Dance, in Jerry Schatzberg's Scarecrow, 1973 YouTube (2:42).  But this is like a profound foreshadowing of what’s to come, though what truly stands out is the dignity and humanity of both characters, which transcends time, place, and circumstance.  What drew Max to Francis is his generosity of spirit, a quality he greatly admires, but something is sapping that spirit.  By the time they get to Detroit, standing right across the street from the home Francis has been pursuing all along, he hasn’t the nerve to knock on the door, making his way instead to a phone booth on the street, with Max giving him a pep talk, reminding him what he needs to say.  But Annie (Penelope Allen) is still furious that he abandoned her when she was pregnant, leading her to deceive him with a stream of lies, creating a trauma-laden scenario that would not only crush his dreams but break his heart, permanently, leaving him utterly broken, hanging up mid-sentence in what has to be the most emotionally devastating phone call in American cinema.  And while he pretends that everything went well, clearly it did not, beautifully expressed in a fountain scene in Belle Isle Park, where they’re playfully interacting with other little kids as their mothers look on, until something goes terribly wrong, as Francis won’t let go of one of the kids that he carries out into the water, desperately clinging to him, as if it’s his own, experiencing a psychological breakdown that is simply unlike anything else we’ve seen in the movies.  It is far and away more authentic, without a trace of sentimentality, scorchingly real, becoming a bombshell moment of utter horror, leaving viewers stunned by the dramatic power of the moment, completely altering the dynamic of the film, turning into something of a psychological nightmare, with shades of Jack Nicholson in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST (1975).  With the wheels literally stripped from their dream, where what happens is fast, destructive, and random, which is how tragedy normally strikes, accompanied by a complete absence of a safety net, there is just a staggering emptiness, reflective of the times, leaving behind an inconsolable loss that is endlessly devastating.  A product of the New Hollywood movement, as it embodies the genre’s hallmarks of a road movie structure, protagonists lingering on society’s fringes, a subtle anti-establishment ethos, and a visual palette steeped in shadowy realism, anchored by career-defining performances from Gene Hackman and Al Pacino, as the film marries bleak existentialism with moments of fragile hope, only to culminate in a denouement so harrowing it etches itself into the viewer’s memory, where it’s hard to imagine a more deafening silence.