A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is a taut, oh-so-precisely executed drama about a nuclear crisis, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. It works better as an exercise in procedural rigor than an experiment in emotional coherence. Set over a compressed 18-minute window, the film chronicles the reaction and response to an undetected ICBM headed for Chicago.
Bigelow arranges the story in three overlapping acts to reenact the timeline from various institutional perspectives—Fort Greely, the White House Situation Room, and a corridor of the President’s motorcade. The repetition becomes a double-edged sword. It provides a comprehensive view of the intricate reasoning behind various military and political tactics, but also risks a disjointed narrative. Scenes will unfold, then loop back upon each other with their own subtle differences.
As a depiction of the horrors of nuclear war, the film is accurate to known form. It rigorously follows the war game scenarios. Still, nobody ever actually determines the missile’s flight path with more than a coin flip certainty. Or even which country launched the ICBM. North Korea appears to be the most likely suspect.
And if the film doesn’t resolve that ambiguity, it’s not because of a mistake, but a choice. It serves as a reminder of how fragile deterrence can be, and also of how little intelligence matters in real-time speed. You rarely see the countdown to impact, but you feel it in every choice, every missed interception, every bureaucratic delay.
As a crisis-of-command drama, however, the film is more uneven. The late-in-the-game introduction of Idris Elba as the President sensibly anchors the final act. He is a man overwhelmed with the weight of his consequence. Two of the strongest and most engaging scenes in the film are ones he shares with Jonah Hauer-King’s Reeves, his revenge-driven strategy adviser.
Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), introduced earlier, lends urgency and at least a sense of control to the Situation Room, though her arc is more functional than transformative. The film’s most personal stakes come from Jared Harris’s Secretary of Defense, whose daughter is on the ground in the strike zone. It leads to a scene of irreversible despair.
The title “A House of Dynamite” pays off on several levels. The White House, the Pentagon, Fort Greely, and those bunkers in Pennsylvania are all actual and symbolic receptacles of explosive potential. The coherence of Bigelow’s tone and pace is the film’s strength. Handheld photography and a low growl serve to highlight the institutional panic underway.
The constant narrative matching at the end comes off dry. It is thematically unnerving, yet it dilutes the emotional impact of three people simultaneously freaking out in it at the beginning.
A few characters are sketched in distinct detail. A subplot involving the Russian foreign minister is utterly contrived and solved at breakneck speed.
Nevertheless, considering the film’s overall perspective has a specific sobering effect. It’s an exposure; a meditation upon procedural entropy. The last verdict — to get even or not — goes unresolved, and that unfinished business is the film’s cleanest hand.
Grade: B+. Streaming on Netflix.
Leave a Reply