Look, many of the critics at Venice were starving for a truly great movie. So far, only two competition films have managed to break into the ‘80s on Metacritic: “No Other Choice” at 88 and “Father Mother Sister Brother” at 80. That’s it. There have been strong movies, but almost none that have received universal acclaim.
Enter Kathryn Bigelow, swooping in to save the day. Her nuclear thriller “A House of Dynamite” may not be racking up points with international critics—though I have a pretty good idea why—but the U.K. and U.S. press are practically giddy, hailing this Netflix-backed Oscar contender like it’s a messiah in celluloid form.
BBC (4/5), The Independent (4/5), The Guardian (5/5), IndieWire (A-), RogerEbert (4/4), The Telegraph (4/5), Next Best Picture (8/10), BBC (4/5), Screen.
The film lands an 88 on Metacritic, and just like that, Netflix has their shiny new awards-season thoroughbred. It’s a knockout comeback for Bigelow, who hadn’t directed a feature in more than seven years—proof that she still knows how to hit hard when it counts.
The only negative review comes to us from Variety’s Owen Gleiberman describing the film as being “trapped between trying to be a “serious” thriller and a piece of glorified schlock.”
The film unfolds Rashomon-style, slicing the story into three perspectives within the U.S. government as an unidentified nation lobs a nuclear missile toward American soil. The truly terrifying thing isn’t just the threat itself—it’s the staggering incompetence on display. Everyone is fumbling in the dark, and if that missile is really coming, the odds of shooting it down with a counterstrike are slim to none.
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.
Still no distributor for "Bucking Fastard," "Alpha Gang," "The Last Photograph," "Closing Night," and "The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd." The issue seems to be quality more than a lack of willingness to buy.