The Film A House of Dynamite: A Political Fantasy and Significant Letdown.

Bestowed upon a select group, the designation of Noted Film-maker can serve as both a crown and a burden. On the beneficial side, it can offer protection: when viewing the works of an distinguished director through this prism, auteurist critics may feel compelled to make excuses for even their weakest efforts. (The reasoning is that a lackluster film by a Noted Film-maker is still better than the best work of a jobbing hack.) One downside is that such titles can confine a creative to a constrained space, pursuing exclusively material befitting a Noted Film-maker; another is that the disappointment when a project doesn't spark is significantly amplified. A prominent example has recently arrived on Netflix in the Kathryn Bigelow-directed A House of Dynamite, a minor effort that – if messages from film buff friends are any indication – seems nailed on for only one recognition this season: that for Biggest Letdown.

Examining Bigelow's Career Path

To understand why the film has disappointed many, we must retrace its director's steps. Bigelow built her reputation with a succession of versatile and dynamic movies: biker flick The Loveless, the sprawling undead story Near Dark, cop thriller Blue Steel, the timeless action film starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze Point Break. A sharper insight of her direction of travel came with the underrated mid-90s release Strange Days, an gripping sci-fi suspense story, informed by the Rodney King incident, which also doubled as a warning tale about the risks of abandoning reality to find refuge in the digital world. (Bigelow proved more alert to this than her screenwriter/ex-husband James Cameron, at work on the release of Avatar 3.) Yet post-2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her native country – was forced on the defensive. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty broached America’s recent military engagements in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the time of national tension, entered into a contentious dialogue with the country’s extended past of racism.

It's easy to see why a director with this background might be attracted to Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who scripted Netflix’s latest show starring Robert De Niro Zero Day – and why the streamer would strongly support a nuclear-panic thriller after Oppenheimer’s Academy Awards dominance. (One idea for the new film: imagine Oppenheimer in the present day?)

What Works and What Doesn't

Dynamite is at its strongest early on, portraying in a realistic timeframe the brief period in which a rocket sent somewhere in the Pacific region by unidentified actors is detected by sensors of a American military installation in Alaska and reported to the presidential command center, en route towards what everyone learns is its target: the heart of Chicago. In this first section, Bigelow and Oppenheim quickly raise the tension while engaging in an fascinating time-based suspense: we’re left pondering where this feature-length movie can possibly go once the timer hits zero.

The response – and this is where the letdowns start – is back to the beginning: the film subsequently shuffles between the perspectives of those higher-ups (Tracy Letts’ general, secretary of defence Jared Harris and commander-in-chief Idris Elba) the introduction briefly seen or mentioned. Structurally, the film can’t develop: it’s a extended runtime with a minimal narrative arc, leaving Oppenheim to rehash the opening section repeatedly, each repetition trowelling on moot procedural points while inching everyone nearer the anticipated detonation. Previous Bigelow films had a firm hold on cause-and-effect; her most successful works as a Noted Film-maker, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were definitionally all consequence. But here, the triggering event is also the endgame; the narrative captivates at the exact moment the film concludes. The personas are left wondering: “Is this all?” We are, too, for separate causes.

Aesthetic and Narrative Flaws

While the plot revolves in shrinking loops, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve plenty of opportunity to consider the deleterious effect streaming budgets has had on the look of U.S. films. Even on the big screen, Dynamite seemed uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s cursory handheld lensing reminiscent of 24 or The West Wing or recent Netflix content employing identical backdrops, including even Zero Day. If Bigelow the Acclaimed Visual Artist vanishes, so too does Bigelow the Noted Feminist Film-maker: Rebecca Ferguson, outlined in that beginning part as possibly one more of this director’s strong female professionals, exits prematurely, so once more it’s up to a collection of stern males to try to prevent the world’s end. The verve Bigelow infused into her grittier initial successes vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s box office disappointment, the director felt she had to restrain her bold choices, but a script this talky required some compensatory pyrotechnics.

Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment

The anxiety A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t atomic destruction, but a artist's anxiety of being considered inadequate; tensing up and virtually solidifying as it progresses, it’s hardly surprising the film should have been eclipsed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this story presumes is that those in charge of critical decisions would be qualified professionals, conscientious to the core and that the greatest danger to Chicago in the latter part of 2025 would come from a location outside of the White House. Where prior Bigelow films felt like intensely involved commentaries on their moment, Dynamite – the initial of this director’s recent works to fall in the space between neglect, diversion and complete unimportance – instead spends two listless hours struggling aimlessly behind the curve. It’s not tense for a reason: even before the unauthorized projectile first registers on a radar, the nation Bigelow’s film describes has been blown to smithereens.