de facto film reviews 3 stars

Kathryn Bigelow’s taut, engrossing docudrama A House of Dynamite uses a hypothetical narrative approach as it dives deep in its real time duration of three points of views that involves the world on the verge of a nuclear war. Bigelow captures with a vivid urgency of just how harrowing it would feel if one of our adversaries were to launch missiles targeting multiple U.S cities.

Courtesy Netflix

The fictional story takes place in a modern setting and, and the narrative dives right into the intensity as we are introduced to an ensemble cast playing senior Situation Room officials, senior military officials, and other experts attempting to reactively respond to the middle launch by an unidentified enemy. We are in and out on the site of the Situation Room. The major players include Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), Secretary of Defense Reid Baker (Jared Harris), General Anthony Brody (Tracy Letts), Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), Admiral Mark Miller (Jason Clarke), and POTUS (Idris Elba).

The day starts casual but takes an instant turn but each official finds themselves making important decisions where every choice is vital. As reports of one missile hitting a major city, everyone is out into a zoom meeting as the POTUS is rushed off from a young girls basketball event in Chicago. Throughout the course of 15 minutes, the government officials face many challenges, such as making erratic decisions, having diplomatic meetings with other nations, and, above all finding the most rational decision under extreme pressure and limited time.

Courtesy Netflix

The mood of the control room feels very familiar as does the loose handheld aesthetics. We have watched these types of aesthetics many times before from Bigelow with Zero Dark Thirty, as well from the work by Paul Greengrass. Yet it still feels tense, with all of the characters utilizing their expertise and critical thinking skills. Their jobs are to stop a full out nuclear war, but also to make ethical decisions that hold some cataclysmic consequences. The film’s screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (Jackie) really limits the drama by only focusing on the US government officials instead of showing other nations being impacted.
It feels short-sighted and plays into America’s own self-absorption. These are just minor quibbles but the film surely has potential of being more dramatically charged the way Babel and Syriana were. What anchors the film are the superlative supporting performances which are solid across the board, but Ferguson, Letts,  and Ramos — the ones with persuasion and convictions — are the most gripping; we trust their experience and expertise to help shade the right strategies.

Courtesy Netflix

Last year’s September 5 was also a control room drama that was executed similarly but with analog technology and it also took place during one day of the Berlin Olympic terrorist shooting. Like September 5, the film falters a bit as some drama comes off inert, but otherwise, it’s a riveting work to a realistic scenario that I hope we never have to live through.
A House of Dynamite opens in select theaters on October 10th and is streaming on Netflix October 24th.