'American Hostage' Starring Jon Hamm Hits Present Nerve

Hug your people tonight. MGM+ has released American Hostage, a dramatization of the February 1977 Indianapolis kidnapping of banker Richard Hall by Tony Kiritsis. Giovanni Ribisi plays Kiritsis, who was angry about a foreclosure on undeveloped commercial ground. Jon Hamm plays radio host Fred Heckman, who gets drawn into the case. The Washington Examiner calls the series uneven but occasionally exhilarating, with its focus on journalistic ethics and public opinion, and sets it beside Gus Van Sant's 2025 film about the same crime, Dead Man's Wire. Richard Hall was a real man, and the people who lived through that kidnapping deserve a careful telling. Remember them first, then decide for yourself whether the show does them justice.