A House of Dynamite is the highly anticipated film from Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim. Its plot is as follows: When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond. With barely eighteen minutes on the clock, we follow the entire chain of command as they scramble for answers and possible solutions. What does America do when a nightmare scenario becomes a reality?
It’s an incredible premise, one that should’ve been a tight, high-stakes political thriller. Add to that Kathryn Bigelow, who is returning to direct her first full length film since 2017’s Detroit and you can see why the hype for this film was so high. Bigelow’s two previous films before Detroit are Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker, films met with high praise and deservedly so. Bigelow is a master of her craft and her directorial voice is enough to get people excited.
Unfortunately, A House Of Dynamite does not hold up to previous works and is a film that was destined to fail from its inception. What I have yet to mention is how the film is presented: The story repeats the same event from three perspectives, an idea that sounds bold but ultimately drags the film down.
The film has a fantastic first act, showing us the perspective of Rebecca Ferguson’s Capt. Olivia Walker, who is the oversight officer for the white house situation room. She is a wife and a mother with a sick child. This presents a very relatable and grounded intro before all hell breaks loose and this is where the movie works best. This first batch of people are relatable and help ground the situation as we watch it unfold through their eyes. However, as we go further up the chain of command the film has less and less to say, and I think that is a problem.
This is a fantastic forty-minute short film that accidentally got made into a two-hour movie. If this film chooses to stay grounded and spend its entire runtime with that situation room team, I think the effect is way more impactful. Rebecca Ferguson is a huge standout here, and once we move on from her the film greatly suffers, and that’s the tragedy of this film: the more distance we get from grounded humanity, the less the movie has to say.
Once we cut to black and reset the clock, a lot of the shock and tension disappears and despite great performances from the likes of Tracy Letts and Gabriel Basso, who attempt to reignite the spark of interest. This just feels like a very safe film at a time when our art should be saying more.
I think a lot of the problems with the movie stem from the script as the story feels flawed. I like a lot of the visuals and the direction helps the frenetic energy they are trying to build, but the overall execution is just lacking. The repetitious nature of the story is a huge detriment as repackaging the same discussions over and over again doesn’t add anything as it is presented here.
The ending of the film is quite possibly the worst part as it is the ultimate exercise in non-committal storytelling. They wrote a movie about making a decision, tell that same story three different times and then don’t commit to a decision. It is bad faith storytelling at a time when stories like this should be making it’s audience think and feel.
The cast is massive, which means it is stacked full of talent but because of the structure of the film, we spend very little time with most of them.
Overall, I enjoyed a lot in this film but unfortunately, the majority of it was from a third of a movie and while I am torn, I think I skew more negative because it just doesn’t work past the first act.
There’s power in restraint, and A House of Dynamite attempts to prove it, but it’s just a lot of smoke, not enough fire. A film about making decisions that ultimately fails to make one.
If you are a fan of Bigelow and have a Netflix subscription, I do recommend checking it out to form your own opinion. It is available on the streaming service to watch now.
Leave a Reply