A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
(director/writer: Kathyrn Bigelow; screenwriter: Noah Oppenheim; cinematographer: Barry Ackroyd; editor: Kirk Baxter; music: Volker Bertelmann; cast: Idris Elba (President), Rebecca Ferguson (Captain Olivia Walker), Jared Harris (Secretary of Defense, Reid Baker), Willa Fitzgerald (Abby Jansing), Anthony Ramos (Major Daniel Gonzalez), Jonah Hauer-King (It. Commander), Greta Lee (Ana Park, an expert on N. Korea), Gabriel Basso (Deputy National Security, Jake), Kyle Allen (Capt. Zimmer), Jason Clarke (Admiral Miller), Tracy Letts (General Brady), Kaitlyn Dever (Caroline Baker); Runtime: 112; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Kathryn Bigelow, Noah Oppenheim, Greg Shapiro; Netflix; 2025)
“Asks the frightening question if it’s possible for a nuclear war to start without anyone knowing how it started.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The first film directed by the great filmmaker Kathyrn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”/”Zero Dark Thirty”) since the disappointing Detroit (2017). She’s the first woman to win an Oscar as a director for “The Hurt Locker”.
The film is scripted by the TV journalist Noah Oppenheim, and is shot in three chapters.
It’s a tense political thriller about a mysterious nuke attack on the United States from an unknown country.
In the opening 40 minutes a rogue nuclear missile from the Pacific Ocean is heading for Chicago. At Fort Greely, in Alaska, a missile command launch site, Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) prepares with his team to possibly shoot down the missile with GBI’s (Ground Based Interceptor missiles). While at the Situation Room in the WH, intelligence officer Captain Ferguson (Rebecca Ferguson) takes charge of handling things by conferring with the President (Idris Elba) and a number of advisers that include the deputy national security adviser, Jake (Gabriel Basso), and the Secretary of Defense Baker (Jared Harris).
In Part two, Captain Ferguson confers with the gung-ho General Brady (Tracy Letts), a military adviser with the United States Strategic Command, to determine how to respond.
In Part three, the President makes the final call of either launching or not launching a strike against the aggressor. He’s been told by his deputy national security adviser that Russia is not responsible for the nuke.
There’s a reset of the opening 18 minutes in the other two parts, as the film starts off from a high-point and loses some momentum because its subplots slow things down.
The nail-biting political film, an anti-nuke film, asks the frightening question if it’s possible for a nuclear war to start without anyone knowing how it started. It’s a technically sound film, whose major faults are that it has too many characters to follow and it has an unsatisfactory unclear ending. The President is undecided if he should let the missile hit Chicago and thereby avert a war or to retaliate. It’s absurd to think anyone in their right mind would choose to let Chicago be destroyed.
The film is released at a time when the world is dangerously divided with too many diverse countries having nukes they are willing to use (that group includes USA, Russia, China, North Korea, France, UK, Israel, and India).
The serious film is well-made and thought-provoking, offering a richly drawn doomsday scenario that shows us the risks of living with nukes but not telling us about the rewards of having nukes.
It played at the Venice Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 10/28/2025 GRADE: B-
Dennisschwartzreviews.com