By Alex McPherson
A bleak and palm-sweating look at just how profoundly screwed we all are, director Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite” refuses to answer its impossible questions about nuclear war, and urges reflection on the chaos and fatalism of our current fractured reality.
The film, a work of fiction that remains chillingly plausible, zeroes in on the question: What if a nuclear warhead launches from an unknown location in the Pacific for an unknown reason, and is en-route to Chicago with only 18 minutes until impact?
It’s an eventuality that many personnel in the windowless facilities of the government have been trained to deal with, but can they put theory into practice when the beginning of the end is at hand? Is anyone prepared to endure the fallout?
Bigelow’s film repeats those 18 minutes three times from different perspectives within a series of situation rooms and command-and-control suites from Alaska to Washington, D.C., going up the chain of command until we reach the President (Idris Elba).
Military and civilian personnel — portrayed by an impressive ensemble including Anthony Ramos, Rebecca Ferguson, Moses Ingram, Tracy Letts, Jared Harris, Greta Lee, and Gabriel Basso, among others — scramble to make sense of and neutralize the threat before it’s too late. The President struggles to decide what to do next should that missile actually hit Chicago.
Time is of the essence, and these trained staff are susceptible to buckling under the weight of what’s headed their way. They are ultimately powerless no matter their rank, and an uncertain future is in the trembling hands of the Commander in Chief. As one flummoxed NSA advisor puts it, the options are either surrender or suicide.
The stakes are dreadfully high, and, despite some unnecessary flourishes, Bigelow refuses to reassure us. Indeed, “A House of Dynamite” is a warning about our (and the world’s in general) precarious situation involving nuclear weapons, as well as a high-strung look at the ways procedures and moral clarity can crumple when theory is put into practice.
Not exactly a “jovial” viewing experience, and one ripe for debate. Still, it’s compulsively entertaining— bringing the scenario to life with a vigorous attention to detail and layered structure that builds toward an integral choice. Bigelow is firmly in her wheelhouse here, supported by acting and production value wholly up to the task.
Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim aren’t aiming to make a “satire” here à la Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.” Rather, the officials depicted in “A House of Dynamite” are skilled at their jobs, many with families at home dealing with familiar, relatable challenges.
The meaningful, albeit brief, insight into their personal lives before the ICBM is detected furthers the idea of these officials being people at the end of day — that no matter their rank, they are capable of fault just like the rest of us.
Their success in this situation, as depicted in this film, is also ultimately as much dependent on luck as their competence; the advanced technology they have at their disposal can only help them so much, too, as unknowns about the missile’s origins and what they should do if it strikes Chicago are left frustratingly opaque.
Bigelow, having consulted with several ex-Pentagon officials, brings a fly-on-the-wall verisimilitude to her direction, with cinematography by the legendary Barry Ackroyd (a frequent Paul Greengrass collaborator) that adds an effectively shaky, almost documentary-esque realism to the proceedings from start to finish.
“A House of Dynamite” is primarily composed of conversations, but fraught ones, backed by a rattling, slightly overused score by Volker Bertelmann (similar to his work in “Conclave”) that lends extra tautness.
The film’s triptych structure adds additional context to what we’ve heard and seen before. Bigelow and Oppenheim visualize the series of checks of balances at play, and the reality that those systems cannot save us.
It’s all effectively nerve-jangling, stressful, and draining through the film’s insistence on going through those 18 minutes three different times — ending on a note that encourages conversation, or, perhaps more likely, shocked silence. Less impressive are the occasional “Hollywood” lines of dialogue that break the illusion of real-life that Bigelow works hard to maintain.
But with such an outstanding cast — Ferguson, Letts, and Elba are particular standouts — it’s difficult to become too distracted by the script’s intermittent clunkiness.
“A House of Dynamite” has additional resonance when thinking about what our current governmental administration would do in the same position. Even with experts at the helm in this film, though, doom is possible if we continue down the same path, alongside procedures that are far from foolproof. Bigelow presents a dire message, and it’s extremely hard to take your eyes off the screen.
“A House of Dynamite” is a 2025 political thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Anthony Ramos, Jason Clarke, Tracy Letts, and Gabriel Basso. The film is rated R for language and run time is 1 hour, 52 minutes. It opened in theatres Oct. 10 and streams on Netflix Oct. 24. Alex’s Grade: B+.
Alex McPherson is an unabashed pop culture nerd and a member of the St. Louis Film Critics Association.
