I remember as a curious 6-year-old kid being terrified by the TV movie The Day After, which looked at the repercussions of a nuclear conflict. As the threat has waxed and waned over the years, an entire subgenre of movies exists imagining the world following nuclear war, and we’d much rather think of it in fantastical terms than in real ones. Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite isn’t going to let us get away with that shit anymore. This is one of the scariest movies you’re going to see all year, if not ever, simply because of the reality that it smacks us in the face with, which is that if an actual nuclear conflict were to arise, the people we count on to protect us are largely helpless to do anything about it.
Penned by former journalist Noah Oppenheim, utilizing an insane amount of research and military advisers, A House of Dynamite follows the minute-by-minute response from the White House when a nuclear missile is launched at the United States from an unknown adversary. From the very beginning, the systems designed to warn us begin to crumble. A malfunction means that we don’t know who launched the assault, so there’s nobody to retaliate against. But more importantly, the film asks what the Hell is the point of retaliation in a nuclear conflict, anyway? The phrase “mutually assured destruction” exists for a reason.
One thing that’s made clear is that the only person with sole authority to initiate a nuclear strike is the President of the United States, played here by Idris Elba. But he’s also, arguably, the least knowledegable person regarding how to do it and what those countermeasures entail. He relies on the information gained from his top advisers, but even they are fallible. A Rashomon-esque narrative examines the events from multiple perspectives, showing the weaknesses up and down the chain. Rebecca Ferguson leads the first chapter as a top official in the Situation Room, with Jason Clarke as her boss. Together, they scramble to find some answers as the minutes tick down to zero, but mostly what they are left to do is watch helplessly and haggle with the President about what to do next. Anthony Ramos plays the commander of the military base tasked as the early warning system, and the ones responsible for neutralizing the threat. Ultimately, there isn’t much that anyone can do but look at their monitors and cross their fingers.
The second chapter centers on a deputy National Security Adviser played by Gabriel Basso. While he initially comes across as unprepared (we see glimpses of him in the first act), he’s the top voice trying to persuade the President from launching retaliatory strike against undefined enemies. Meanwhile, Tracy Letts plays the General in charge of the nuclear arsenal, and he’s encouraging the President to strike now before it’s too late. But what kind of decision is that for anyone to make? Vaporize all of our rivals in the chance they did it? Or sit back and do nothing? As Basso’s character says, it’s a “surrender or suicide” scenario and no amount of political experience can prepare anyone for a decision like that.
The third and final chapter follows Elba as the POTUS, agonizing over the no-win situation that he’s been dealt. By this point, the repetitive structure is beginning to wear a bit thin, as there isn’t enough new information being added to keep it fresh. An exception is Jared Harris who gives a heartbreaking performance as the Secretary of Defense, who realizes that his estranged daughter is within the blast radius of the missile strike.
The entire ensemble is incredible, helping to ramp up the anxiety to unbearable levels, along with Volker Bertelmann’s cacophonous score. With such a large cast, it’s clear that some storylines were either dropped or significantly reduced. Such is the case with Moses Ingram as a FEMA official navigating the emergency response, and Greta Lee as the NSA’s North Korea expert. Notably, another thread that seems to have been cut regards the senior officials pulled from duty to maintain Continuity of Government. In a dire situation, often the most knowledgeable people are yanked out of the room where their expertise can do the most good.
A sort of loose-knit trilogy that includes Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, the film is surprisingly apolitical. None of the officials advising the President is particularly hawkish, there isn’t one with a clear agenda one way or another. They all are attempting to offer the best guidance they can, and that’s what’s so scary is that all of the expertise in the world only amounts to so much. However, you can bet your ass there will be thinkpieces everywhere, and some attempting to score political points. I’ll freely admit that I thought about what this scenario would look like with the current clown in the White House. But the truth is, it wouldn’t matter who is in charge. The disastrous result of a real nuclear conflict would play out largely the same. It’s that sad inevitability that explains the unsatisfyingly ambiguous conclusion to A House of Dynamite, but there’s no doubt this is a gripping political horror movie that should reignate the conversation around nuclear weapons. I would say “around our nuclear readiness” but there’s no way to be ready and that’s something we all have to wrap our minds around.
A House of Dynamite opens in select theaters October 10th before streaming to Netflix on October 24th.
