American Hostage (2026) * * * (series on MGM Plus)

 

Starring:  Jon Hamm, Giovanni Ribisi, Mireille Enos, Kristoffer Polaha, Adam Arkin, Jonathan Tucker, William Jackson Harper

Maybe Tony Kiritsis saw Dog Day Afternoon and was inspired to involve the media in his kidnapping of mortgage banker Dick Hall.  Tony (Ribisi) is a frustrated Indianapolis Korean War veteran who feels his mortgage company is up to shenanigans as it forecloses on his business.  He takes Hall (Polaha) hostage at the bank with a shotgun tied to his neck and walks him from the bank to his apartment.  Tony demands to be interviewed by the local news station's Fred Heckman (Hamm), who Tony believes will give him a fair shake and allow him to voice his pent-up anger at Hall and the world in general.

Fred is an old-school reporter who wants to get back to covering the news instead of just reporting it.  He has a pending offer from a large New York station that promises grand things to Fred, but he's not sure he wants to leave Indy.   However, the Tony/Dick Hall saga places Fred into the middle of the story, and in some ways he becomes the story.  Fred Heckman differs from other Jon Hamm characters because, at least through the first four episodes, he is shown to be a loving family man with no trace of Don Draper or Special Agent Adam Frawley (from The Town) anywhere to be found.  Hamm is quite good here playing an honest and decent man (unless the next episodes throw a curveball).  

Ribisi gives us a kidnapper who may be crazy or may be someone pushed to his limits.  Ribisi provides depth to someone who we think we know, but we find he isn't showing us all the cards.  What throws a monkey wrench into the story is how a growing number of locals sympathize or side with Tony.  Mortgage bankers or corporate types tend to elicit little sympathy from the public, even if the man is a husband and father.  Just watch the Luigi Mangione saga unfold and you'll see all the evidence you need that the previous statement is true. 

American Hostage mostly moves along although I'm sure the episode is upcoming in which the series reverts to the past to tell us more in-depth about Tony and Fred.  Both have their own sad stories to tell, and American Hostage captures a sense of time and place which allows them room to breathe.  There is humor in the shameless actions of Tony's and the station's attorneys who are actually thinking about granting Tony immunity since the bank's actions may be more criminal.  If this isn't an allusion to the Mangione case, then nothing is.