Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite: An Ambitious Political Thriller and Significant Letdown.

Bestowed upon a select group, the mantle of Noted Film-maker can serve as both a crown and a burden. On the positive side, it can offer protection: when viewing the works of an distinguished director through this lens, film scholars may feel compelled to defend even their weakest efforts. (The reasoning is that a lackluster film by a Renowned Director is still better than the best work of a routine filmmaker.) One disadvantage is that such titles can limit a creative to a constrained space, seeking out material worthy of a Esteemed Director; another is that the frustration when a project falls flat is even more pronounced. A high-profile test case has made its way to Netflix in the latest from Bigelow A House of Dynamite, a minor effort that – if feedback from movie enthusiasts are any guide – seems nailed on for only one recognition this season: that for Biggest Letdown.

Retracing the Director's Steps

To ascertain the reasons the film has disappointed many, we must retrace its director's steps. Bigelow earned her laurels with a series of versatile and dynamic movies: biker flick The Loveless, the sprawling undead story Near Dark, cop thriller Blue Steel, the timeless Keanu/Swayze actioner Point Break. Clearer indication of her artistic path came with the underrated mid-90s release Strange Days, an intense future-now thriller, informed by the Rodney King incident, which also doubled as a moral story about the dangers of rejecting actuality to find refuge in the simulated environment. (Bigelow proved more alert to this than her screenwriter/ex-husband James Cameron, at work on the release of Avatar 3.) Yet after the events of 2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her the United States – was compelled to respond to external pressures. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty broached America’s then-recent misadventures in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the period following the Charlottesville events, entered into a fractious conversation with the country’s extended past of racism.

One can appreciate why a artist following this path might be interested in Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the former NBC News chief who penned Netflix’s recent, De Niro-led series Zero Day – and why the service would vigorously back a missile crisis drama after Oppenheimer’s Academy Awards dominance. (One pitch for the new film: a contemporary version of Oppenheimer?)

High Points and Low Points

Dynamite is at its strongest early on, portraying in a realistic timeframe the short interval in which a missile launched somewhere in the Pacific region by unidentified actors is detected by sensors of a US army base in Alaska and alerted to the White House situation room, heading for what everyone learns is its objective: the heart of Chicago. In this opening segment, Bigelow and Oppenheim quickly raise the tension while engaging in an compelling countdown strategy: we’re made to question where this feature-length movie can possibly proceed once the countdown clock expires.

The response – and at this point the frustrations emerge – is a revisit of the opening: the film later moves between the angles of those higher-ups (Tracy Letts’ general, secretary of defence Jared Harris and president Idris Elba) the introduction glimpsed or heard only in passing. From a narrative standpoint, the film is unable to advance: it’s a two-hour movie with fewer than 20 minutes of plot, leaving Oppenheim to rehash the opening section repeatedly, each repetition layering on moot procedural points while inching everyone nearer the anticipated detonation. Earlier Bigelow films had a tight grip on cause-and-effect; her most successful works as a Esteemed Director, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were inherently about outcomes. But here, the catalytic moment is also the endgame; the narrative captivates at the very second the film ends. The figures are left wondering: “Is this the end?” We are, too, for distinct motivations.

Visual and Thematic Shortcomings

While the situation cycles in diminishing returns, like a doomy Groundhog Day, we’ve plenty of opportunity to reflect on the negative impact platform financing has had on the look of American cinema. Even on the cinema display, Dynamite seemed uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s cursory handheld lensing reminiscent of 24 or The West Wing or current streaming offerings reusing familiar locations, up to and including Zero Day. If Bigelow the Acclaimed Visual Artist vanishes, so too does Bigelow the Celebrated Female Auteur: Rebecca Ferguson, outlined in that opening reel as perhaps an additional of this director’s tough-minded working women, leaves the story too soon, so yet again it’s left to a group of serious male figures to try to prevent the world’s end. The energy Bigelow infused into her pulpier breakthrough films vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s financial shortfall, the director felt she had to restrain her risk-taking, but a script this verbose required some balancing visual flair.

The Core Fear and Final Analysis

The dread A House of Dynamite most effectively inspires, then, isn’t global eradication, but a filmmaker's fear of being deemed insufficient; tensing up and almost petrifying as it progresses, it’s hardly surprising the film should have been eclipsed by recent, recontextualising events. What this screenplay takes for granted is that those in charge of critical decisions would be qualified professionals, fundamentally diligent and that the biggest threat to Chicago in late 2025 would come from some place other than the White House. Where prior Bigelow films felt like intensely involved commentaries on their era, Dynamite – the first of this director’s latest projects to fall in a gray area of neglect, diversion and complete unimportance – instead spends a pair of lethargic hours clawing futilely outdated. It’s not tense for a reason: even before the rogue missile first registers on a radar, the nation Bigelow’s film depicts has been shattered completely.