Boy did the pandemic really rattle Hollywood. Filmmakers have gone down all sorts of rabbit holes about growing distrust of institutions. Ari Aster showed how Eddington, New Mexico was fraying. Alex Garland went right to Civil War. And now Kathryn Bigelow decided it was time for World War III. A House of Dynamite suggests that that all that spending the US does on the military and defense might not make us as safe as we think we are. Perfect horror movie fuel for October, am I right?
This isn’t a test. A missile is launched from the North Korea/Russia area. It reaches suborbit, and is going to hit Chicago in 20 minutes. So that ring Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) was excited Officer William Davis (Malachi Beasley) was going to buy today for his wife? Not as important anymore in the Situation Room. Every DEFCON increase brings on new voices/strategies: Fort Greeley Commander/threat detector Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), STRATCOM Commander Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts), Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso) the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris), up and up the chain. Eventually, we hit DEFCON 1, meaning the President (Idris Elba) has some very important decisions to make about what to do next. For the United States, and frankly, for the current world order.
The first 40 minutes of A House of Dynamite shows Kathryn Bigelow can still make you hold your breath harder and longer than most directors. It’s an incredible feat of tension amplification, easing us in by introducing us to the main players, scattered across cities, states, and countries. The problem starts small with Gonzalez and Fort Greeley, trying to figure out if this Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) is just a test or not. When they realize it’s real, it gets real quiet and the mood changes. Gonzalez notifies STRATCOM, who in turn loops in Captain Walker, which is when I noticed I stopped breathing. That’s right; through basically conference calls and giant TV Screens Bigelow sets the stage and key players, who act how we probably all would as we learn of a horror like this in real time. It’s chaos incarnate, mixed with horror, as key players like Olivia’s boss Mark Miller (Jason Clarke) get escorted away for “contingency plans” leaving perhaps unproven others forced into the decision making spotlight. Even though the event threatens millions of lives, Bigelow never loses sight of the fact that it’s humans doing this work: scared, imperfect humans, not above being overwhelmed by what’s happening. Every setback inches Chicago closer to annihilation, and the weight of each little contingency failure reverberates as that twenty minutes becomes 10. Then 5. Then 2. Then 1. Then…
Unfortunately the rest of Bigelow’s movie fails to live up to that opening section. A House of Dynamite is just about that 20 minutes, but gets told from different points of view as new questions arise. While Daniel Gonzalez and Anthony Brady are dealing with the ICBM, Bigelow gives us a new story that spins up from it: regardless of what happens, how does the US respond? We see people like Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves (Jonah Hauer-King) reveal their part in this tale: the contingency executioners, getting US leaders to safe places so they can govern, further sewing chaos when stability is needed most. People like Jake Baerington have to run to the White House to cover for the vacationing National Security Advisor, and inform the President key information about 1) who might have done this and 2) what should the US do depending on question 1? And maybe be ready to negotiate with a Russian ambassador they have never met before. Naturally, the tension isn’t as high in these later sections as a team intercepting a missile, but this is the real meat of A House of Dynamite. Yes there’s some redundancies to mitigate risk, but not as much as people think there are. Those missile interception tactics we use? We can only get 1 or 2 tries since we need the rest in case there’s a greater attack later. What kind of guarantee does Russia give? Good vibes from the Deputy National Security Advisor? With that kind of “info,” maybe its best for the President to just strike first and ask questions later. Bigelow hopes audiences realize how chilling her movie title is, because of how many ways things can go so, so wrong.
I can see the government trying desperately to convince people that A House of Dynamite is a fantasy. Something so inconceivable it can’t ever happen. The US is too prepared for that. But the picture Kathryn Bigelow paints certainly feels honest for a long time. I hope the US isn’t A House of Dynamite, but we do have multiple Europeans (Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris) in key power roles. Maybe this was an inside job? Certainly sounds like a true crime documentary Netflix would make about this situation.