American Hostage: more theatrical version, but no less exciting (review)

The Tony Kiritsis affair revisited by HBO Max, a few months after Gus Van Sant’s film. The comparison is inevitable and it says a lot…

A few months after the release of La Corde au cou, the film by Gus Van Sant dedicated to the Tony Kiritsis affair, here is American Hostage which is released today on HBO Max in France and in turn tells the story of this completely crazy American news story, long forgotten. Same story, same characters, same extraordinary hostage situation… but two different perspectives on the events.

On February 8, 1977, Tony Kiritsis, drowning in debt and convinced that the financiers of Meridian Mortgage were trying to appropriate land that belonged to him, decided to make his voice heard. His plan is as simple as it is terrifying: take Richard Hall hostage, the son of the boss of the company specializing in mortgage loans, and connect his neck to the trigger of a gun with a wire. Impossible to try anything without risking the hostage’s head exploding. Under the stunned eyes of the police, the residents of Indianapolis and soon a good part of America, Tony leaves home with Richard Hall…..