It’s the mark of a memorable thriller when you’re less invested in the knotty mechanics of its setup than in the intricate interplay of its characters. That quality courses through Gus Van Sant’s propulsive Dead Man’s Wire, rendering its “based on a true story” tagline with a timeless, prescient edge. Though sonically and visually tethered to its ’70s setting, the film feels vitally attuned to contemporary anxieties, radiating a working-class angst that time has only further legitimized.

Recounting a curious 1977 Indianapolis hostage crisis, Dead Man’s Wire doubles as a cinematic microcosm of a system—or so-called American dream—that serves to disarm, delude, and disillusion. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not so much unalienable rights as privileges commandeered by a cutthroat few.

A career-best Bill Skarsgård stars as Tony Kiritsis, who, after feeling cheated by his mortgage company on a land deal, takes its president, M.L. Hall (Al Pacino), hostage in a bid to reverse his financial ruin and extract a formal apology. When Hall takes a last-minute trip to Florida, Tony pivots, nabbing his son Richard (Dacre Montgomery) and strapping him into a dead man’s wire attached to a shotgun.

As the standoff between Tony and police—led by Detective Michael Grable (Cary Elwes)—escalates, pulling in a budding television reporter (Myha’la) and a popular local radio DJ (Colman Domingo), the true meaning of justice and fairness comes sharply into focus.

Manifesting as a ball of pure, unadulterated rage, Skarsgård palpitates through the frame as the film’s kinetic core. Brimming with zingers, nervous tics, and volatile outbursts (“Biggest devils there are, loan companies!”), he emerges as an earnest, wonderfully lived-in folk hero in the making—more relatable and honest than the wealthy man he’s holding hostage.

Van Sant distills Austin Kolodney’s high-wire script into a state-of-the-nation character study about a man struggling to break through the upper class’s entitlement and disregard for common decency. When Tony admits, “I’ve never been on a vacation in my entire fucking life,” it cuts deeper than the bullets from his jerry-rigged shotgun.

Alongside cinematographer Arnaud Potier, Van Sant gives Dead Man’s Wire a nervy, energetic touch—quick cuts, black-and-white photography, and CRT textures forming a scuzzy, cosmic newsreel. Accented by needle drops from Labi Siffre and Donna Turner, and a cheeky inversion of Dog Day Afternoon—with Pacino now cold-blooded on the other end of the phone—the film targets a raw nerve that still hasn’t healed.

Dead Man’s Wire is in theatres now.