A House Of Dynamite (15, 112 mins)
Matthew Bond
Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is the absolute queen of cinematic tension, as anyone who saw The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty can attest.
But anyone who saw those compelling films – the first detailing the terrifying work done by an American bomb disposal squad during the Iraq War, the second recreating the hunt for Osama bin Laden – also knows that she likes to keep it real, very real.
She does both to dizzying, almost paralysing effect with A House Of Dynamite.
This, in short, is the brief story of how the world might be reduced to a pile of glowing, radioactive rubble, certainly with bangs but also with a series of technical and human failings.
Pausing only to remind us what deep down we already knew – that the Cold War is over and that we live in far more dangerous times – it begins like any other ordinary day.
In Alaska, the soldiers of a missile defence battalion are preparing for another shift in front of their monitors.
Kathryn Bigelow’s new thriller is the queen of cinematic television (Rebecca Ferguson as Captain Olivia Walker)
I recommend it highly. You certainly won’t forget it. (Gabriel Basso as Jake Baerington)
And in Washington Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), a wife and mother, is getting ready to go to work. It turns out she runs the White House Situation Room.
Somewhere in the background of monitors and displays, we note that we are at Defcon 4, one up from the level representing normal peace.
Judging by the banter, it might be something to do with the North Koreans’ unpredictable programme of missile testing.
So when a new missile is picked up by the Alaska team, that’s what everyone assumes it is.
Except the launch has somehow been missed by American spy satellites and appears to have been at sea.
The North Koreans don’t have a submarine armed with nuclear weapons. Do they?
Then suddenly there is no time to find out. We’re at Defcon 2.
I don’t want to say much more except that this is a brilliant film, shot and edited to truly chilling effect and skillfully underplayed by a cast led by Ferguson, Jared Harris and Idris Elba.
I recommend it highly. You certainly won’t forget it.
Brian Viner
How might the United States respond in the event of a nuclear attack, with less than 20 minutes before an incoming missile lands on Chicago?
Even with all the sophisticated satellite technology at their disposal, US military intelligence chiefs have no idea which of their country’s enemies launched the missile, only that it began its potentially cataclysmic journey somewhere in the Pacific.
That is the alarmingly plausible crisis at the heart of Kathryn Bigelow’s breathlessly pacy thriller A House of Dynamite, comfortably the most exciting movie I saw at this year’s Venice Film Festival.
Bigelow was the first woman to be crowned Best Director at the Academy Awards, for the 2008 action thriller The Hurt Locker, set during the Iraq War.
She is still (with Chloe Zhao and Jane Campion) one of only three women to win the coveted prize and I wouldn’t bet against her becoming the first to win it twice.
A House of Dynamite is certainly good enough to win a raft of Oscars.
It is divided into three main acts, each chronicling the same events from a different perspective. We don’t see the US President (Idris Elba) until the third act, when, after being hurriedly ushered out of a cheerful visit to a school (echoing the moment George W Bush was told about the 9/11 attacks), he must decide whether or not to retaliate before Chicago is obliterated.
But retaliate against who? China? Russia? North Korea? Iran? All the above? The Russians are aware of the missile but say it’s nothing to do with them. Maybe it was even launched by accident, a scenario that inspired a terrific film at the height of the Cold War, Sidney Lumet’s 1964 thriller Fail Safe, starring Henry Fonda.
Then as now, the world stands uneasily on the brink of disaster. If this is a coordinated attack, can the US afford not to respond? Which cataclysm does POTUS choose?
The world stands uneasily on the brink of disaster. If this is a coordinated attack, can the US afford not to respond? Which cataclysm does POTUS choose? (Anthony Ramos as Major Daniel Gonzalez)
Bigelow wisely keeps her film under two hours and wisely resists the temptation to tell us too much about the personal lives of her protagonists (Kyle Allen as Captain Jon Zimmer)
Some 10 million people will die in Chicago if the missile detonates, hundreds of millions more around the world if he activates the nuclear codes.
These are carried by a fresh-faced lieutenant-commander (Jonah Hauer-King) whose job is to advise his boss on the various magnitudes of response open to him. ‘It’s like a diner menu,’ says the President, with gallows humour.
Bigelow’s film superbly evokes the furnace of decision-making that such an agonising dilemma might ignite. There is a clanging ring of truth to the conflicting advice the President gets, from a gung-ho army general (Tracy Letts) insistent that there absolutely must be some kind of response before it’s too late, to the startlingly young Deputy National Security Advisor (Gabriel Basso), thrust into the frenzy because his boss cannot be reached, who counsels restraint.
The excellent screenplay is by Noah Oppenheim, a former television executive, indeed president of NBC News, who doubtless tapped his White House contacts for insight.
Commendably, he and Bigelow do not talk down to their audience. There is some expository dialogue but it is sensibly kept to a minimum as abbreviations and acronyms fly. This alphabet soup adds to the authenticity. They know that EKV stands for Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, and DE for Designated Evacuee. We don’t need to.
In some ways all this plays like the finest feature-length episode of The West Wing you ever saw. But much as I admired Aaron Sorkin’s hit TV drama, there was a rat-a-tat-tat glibness to the dialogue that is wholly lacking here. Nobody on this white-knuckle ride has time to be a smart-aleck.
Also, like all the scariest white-knuckle rides, it doesn’t last too long. Bigelow wisely keeps her film under two hours and wisely resists the temptation to tell us too much about the personal lives of her protagonists.
Instead, we learn just enough. The commander of a military base in Alaska (Anthony Ramos) is having some unspecified domestic issues. Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), who takes charge in the White House Situation Room, is a loving wife and mother.
Elsewhere, a key expert on North Korea (Greta Lee) is spending her day off with her son at a reconstruction of the US Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, gently rebuking him when he calls the spectacle awesome. There were 50,000 killed at Gettysburg in three days, she notes. It’s the only clunky line in the entire film. Clearly we’re meant to compare what constituted huge wartime casualties then, with now.
A House of Dynamite was released in cinemas on October 3, and on Netflix a week later.
