‘American Hostage’ Review: Jon Hamm Turns A Radio Negotiation Into A Study Of Journalistic Ethics

If the story American Hostage tells sounds oddly familiar, there are three likely reasons. Maybe you’re old enough to remember the actual event — one that barely registered outside the United States when it happened, back in 1977. Or maybe you’ve heard the podcast, or seen Gus Van Sant’s recent film Dead Man’s Wire, which tells the same story in something closer to radio-drama form in the podcast’s case, and in cinematic form in the film’s. Most likely, though, it’s the film that rings a bell, since it tells the same story in far less time and with considerably more economy.

The essential difference between the series and the film lies elsewhere, though. The film traced the general tension generated by this bizarre kidnapping and focused mainly on the fraught relationship between the kidnapper, his hostage, and the grievance at the center of it all. American Hostage shifts the focus to what was, in the film, a secondary thread. There, the inexperienced kidnapper — a man pushed to the edge by a mortgage company’s mistreatment and scams — communicated with authorities through a radio host he trusted, who functioned as intermediary and, at times, negotiator. Played by Bill Skarsgård and Colman Domingo, the kidnapper-and-host pairing was just one of several subplots running through the case. Here, that negotiation is the whole point.

In American Hostage, the kidnapping itself and the specific demand behind it take a back seat to the difficulties, compromises, and ethical dilemmas facing the journalist — and the outlet he works for — as he negotiates with the kidnapper. Played by Jon Hamm (who bears no resemblance to Domingo), Fred Heckman isn’t a DJ who mostly spins records, as in the film, but a longtime radio host and reporter in Indianapolis, where the action unfolds. Giovanni Ribisi plays Tony Kiritsis, the kidnapper who, on February 8, 1977, walked into the offices of Meridian Mortgage and took hostage Dick Hall (Kristoffer Polaha), one of the company owner’s sons. He did it in a strange way, too: rigging a device that connected a shotgun to a wire looped around his victim’s neck, set to fire if anyone tried to catch or kill him.

The film leaned heavily on that device — the wired shotgun around the victim’s neck — but here it fades into the background. The series instead follows what unfolds from the point of view of a journalist who’s been angling for a job in New York or some other major city, and who suddenly realizes that, for the first time, the entire country is riveted by his every move as he keeps talking to Tony. While his reporters dig for information, the police prepare, the lawyers negotiate (Tony was demanding an apology from the company’s owner), and Tony manages his hostage, Fred is left wrestling with the doubts and complications that could engulf him if his negotiation with the kidnapper goes wrong.

Much like Network, a film from the very era these events took place in, what American Hostage really depicts is the behind-the-scenes chaos of a news outlet forced to handle a live, volatile crisis — walking a tightrope between what’s ethical and what isn’t, what’s journalism and what isn’t. Shawn Ryan (creator of the iconic The Shield) and Eileen Myers (of Big Love) build a complex plot with real potential, but it loses steam on two fronts. One is the story’s familiarity — if you haven’t seen the film or heard the podcast, the series gains in intrigue; if you have, less so. The other is its runtime, which runs close to seven hours and could easily have been trimmed by several.

The period reconstruction is well done, and Hamm is a specialist at playing characters who occupy a somewhat undefined moral space. Here, he’s a man who wants to do the right thing while also knowing that taking center stage could catapult him to national fame. The supporting cast around him is strong too, even when they clash or push back against him. Mireille Enos grows increasingly important as Barbara, Fred’s wife, while Ribisi is excellent as the man who lost patience with the people he believed were scamming him and took matters into his own hands — becoming, for a while at least, Indiana’s unlikely media idol. One that nobody remembered until the podcast, the film, and now this series gave him a belated, unexpected fame.