Film Review: Strange Days Indeed — Kathryn Bigelow Opens the Door to 'A House of Dynamite'

Unrelenting and tense, the newest from the director of 'Zero Dark Thirty' asks impossible questions

Kathryn Bigelow gave audiences an unforgettable thrill ride of suspense, moral ambiguity, and action with her based-on-true-events 2012 drama Zero Dark Thirty. Prior to that she won the Best Director Oscar for 2008’s The Hurt Locker — the first woman to win the Academy Award for direction. Clearly, Bigelow is someone who knows her way around movies that tell modern tales of international intrigue while keeping a human core intact.

(Photo: Anthony Ramos in A House of Dynamite. Credit: Eros Hoagland/Netflix)

With A House of Dynamite, Bigelow proves she can work in a somewhat different format. A terrifying and suspenseful film about the ongoing risks of nuclear war, the film recognizes that any of a number of nuclear powers (now or in the near future) might deploy a warhead — just one — to create utter chaos and test the resolve of the most militarily mighty nation on Earth. When a nuclear missile is spotted heading for the heartland of the United States, military and political leaders juggle personal and professional priorities, sweating out a situation that becomes more impossible to resolve as the minutes tick by.

Noah Oppenheim’s script lets us see servicemembers at monitoring stations, White House functionaries, generals, and even the president wrestle with the uncertainties of what’s happening and how to respond. Technical failures (perhaps the result of carefully planned cyber-warfare) mean that it’s impossible to tell who launched the warhead, and the chances of bringing it down before it can strike its target rapidly diminish. The film’s structure replays the same short span of minutes again and again, focusing on different members of the cast of characters with each iteration. It’s an approach that could become nerve-fraying rather than tension-raising as we hear the same lines repeated, but the shift in contexts gives the dialogue new meaning each time.

(Photo: Rebecca Ferguson in A House of Dynamite. Credit: Eros Hoagland/Netflix)

Among the chatter taking place in situation rooms and command centers we hear a few theories: It could be a technical malfunction of a new Chinese missile system. It could be North Korea flexing. It could be Russia looking to cast suspicion and blame on some other country in a move meant to distract before launching an even more devastating attack.

Bigelow’s direction and the talents of a fine cast (among them Idris Elba, Jason Clarke, Anthony Ramos, Jared Harris, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, and Gabriel Basso) make the scenario and the sense of rising near-panic realistic, if slightly outdated. The sight of military personnel responding to an actual crisis rather than being wasted on political theater strikes a nostalgic chord, and the sense that we’re watching a well-organized, competent government respond to an existential threat seems like it belongs to a different political era. There is, for instance, a well-staffed and seemingly nimble FEMA in operation… something hardly guaranteed for future disasters, nuclear or otherwise. More than being reminded of the operational capabilities of a well-run government, the viewer might be struck by the contrast of what our government used to be like versus the daily spectacle of moronic imbecility to which we’re now subjected — a shortfall of talent, ability, and serious-mindedness that puts us at existential risk in the real world.

(Photo: A House of Dynamite. Credit: Eros Hoagland/Netflix)

There is much to regret about our real life contemporary moment, not least of which a movie that’s sober, intelligent, and premised on credible threat scenarios almost feels quaint. The fact that the missile’s target is a “blue” city that the current administration openly talks about punishing feels truly on the nose, and the presence in the film of strong, capable women and people of color in leadership positions points up the fundamental weaknesses in the country’s current idea of what constitutes national security. (You don’t, after all, make a country safer by sidelining and demeaning its most accomplished and competent people.)

This movie may feel made for a different, more sensible time, but the nuclear age in which we continue to live is just as factual and dangerous as it ever was, and the film’s geopolitical observations stand firm, the disgrace of America’s domestic affairs notwithstanding. We truly have built “a house of dynamite.” Now we wait to see if we’ve also lit a fuse. Bigelow invites us to image the outcome of our current course, and she feeds plenty of angst to the imagination.

A House of Dynamite is streaming now on Netflix.