It should have been a movie event, Kathryn Bigelow’s first film in eight years, “A House of Dynamite,” premiered to rapturous reviews at Venice (89 on Metacritic!) only to come back down to earth once more critics saw it (75 on Metacritic).
I had seen it on the lido, and those early raves already felt puzzling, but the broader rollout seems to be exposing the film’s weaknesses. Its sharpest assets are confined to the lean, gripping opening forty minutes, elevated by Volker Bertelmann’s lush score (though it undeniably recalls his work on “Conclave”). After that, the film settles into a Rashomon-inspired structure that quickly grows repetitive, draining the energy built up in the first act.
“A House of Dynamite” stars Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Jason Clarke: they’re the players on the board, but the real star is the faceless villain—a rogue nuclear missile streaking toward Chicago, giving us a twenty-minute deadline to doomsday.
The movie is sliced into three movements, each about half an hour, each told from a different set of eyes, and each ending with the same cliffhanger. The script, by Noah Oppenheim (who brilliantly wrote “Jackie” but also conceived Netflix’s dreadful “Zero Day”), isn’t one for subtlety. There’s no denying the research, the detail, the acronyms that get thrown into ‘Dynamite.’ It’s a film that attempts to be as realistic and grounded as possible about the situation at hand.
We’re all teetering on the brink of catastrophic oblivion, Bigelow and her screenwriter Noah Oppenheim seem to be saying, and not in a vague, metaphorical way. Our capacity to defend the film’s targeted city, Chicago, or to strike back at whoever might be launching these missiles is, in a word, pathetic.
Bigelow’s film isn’t a 21st-century “Fail Safe,” though it flirts with that shadow; And unlike those paranoid mid-’60s thrillers, this one doesn’t reassure whatsoever. There’s no future here but the one you’d rather not imagine. Bigelow insists it’s cold and bleak, and we’re all doomed.
Just a few weeks ago, the film seemed like a surefire Oscar contender, but the post-fest response has shown how quickly momentum can evaporate once the glow wears off. The opposite effect has occurred with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” which started off weak at Venice and has has had a very strong post-fest reception with critics and audiences.
‘House of Dynamite’ is now available to stream on Netflix — what did you think? Do you agree with me that, after its great first 40-ish minutes, the film loses all momentum? Post your thoughts in the comments below.