An accelerating stream of worst-case nuclear scenarios engulfs the audience in A House of Dynamite, an excitement-packed political thriller slyly designed to prod one’s deepest fears about the atomic era and show how very grounded they are. What starts out as a normal morning in the White House suddenly goes south when a nuclear ICBM appears on the monitors headed for Chicago. Around this simple premise, director Kathryn Bigelow crafts a fast-moving and timely reminder that human and mechanical error can be as lethal as a warhead, delivering a dire warning that nuclear deterrence based on the fear of mutual destruction has some serious flaws.
The intensity of the story brings to mind the drastic solutions proposed in the Cold War thriller Fail Safe, filmed in 1964 by Sidney Lumet and again in 2000 by Stephen Frears. It posits a group of American bombers being accidentally deployed to Moscow, and unable to be recalled in time to stop a nuclear war. In an opening title, Bigelow states that at the end of the Cold War, nuclear arsenals were expected to diminish. Far from it.
The Netflix release received the full honor of a competition screening in Venice, the festival that launched Bigelow’s early Academy Award-winning hit set during the Iraq war, The Hurt Locker, in 2008. With Zero Dark Thirty (2012) which dramatized the successful US operation to find and kill Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Bigelow’s new film fits neatly into an American war trilogy, one that ends in the Apocalypse. Or does it?
If there is a weak link in this emotion-drenched story, which screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (Jackie) tells three times from different POVs in classic Rashomon fashion, it is the shocker of an ending. Few will see it coming, some will accept its appropriateness, but many will dispute this radical choice. More cannot be said except that it is a matter of taste.
A less controversial narrative decision is to introduce and delineate a wide variety of characters and let each shine in turn for about ten minutes. In the first account of the disaster that happens one fine morning in America, the efficient Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) kisses her husband and feverish young son goodbye to make her way to a high-tech operations room, where she is second in command. Her defining trait is being calm under fire, which is useful when the instruments suddenly announce a nuclear strike is in progress. As soon becomes clear, the missile, whose origin is unknown, is not a fluke or an error but a real threat. In a structure that loves acronyms, DEFCON 2 – high alert – is declared.
Across the country, other situation rooms of the army, air force and marines go on high alert from Fort Greely, Alaska to Nebraska. A tall, square-jawed pilot makes a manly joke as he suits up for his very special mission in a B-2 Ghost bomber, suggesting the film could be headed for a Dr. Strangelove-type ending.
If the military personnel are all young and excitable, the old-timers are in denial; but everyone wants to warn their families to flee. Two missiles are launched to intercept the invader – and at the last minute both fail to deploy. “Is this what we get for 50 billion dollars?” rants the head of the Pentagon. “A bullet hitting a bullet,” shrugs a staff member. Now DEFCON 1 – nuclear war imminent – is declared. As the options prove to be nonexistent (“There is no Plan B”), the Secret Service starts to selectively evacuate personnel to nuclear shelters like the Pentagon’s Raven Rock nuclear bunker, leaving everybody else to survive on their own. And the buck about what to do stops at the President.
At a certain point, the stunned operatives get POTUS on the phone. Imagine him as you will: for two-thirds of the film he is no more than an angry black screen on a video call. Only when the story-telling reaches its third round does Idris Elba materialize as an Obama-style president who, in a total quandary as the minutes tick away, consults his smart, cool wife who appears surrounded by elephants on some kind of an African safari.
Casting Elba is a good way to sweep away doubts that the current Administration is behind all the technical glitches and flashes of incompetence that paralyze a prompt response. Instead the point seems to be that systems fail and unscripted emergencies come along; key decision-makers fall sick and the President of the United States is left taking advice from 30-year-old deputies.
One of these is a clean-cut military aid who carries around the nuclear football with the authentication codes and response options in case of nuclear emergency. In a fascinating scene aboard Air Force One, the young aid shows the Commander-in-Chief a literal menu of three levels of strikebacks, referring to them as “rare, medium and well-done”.
As the countdown brings the city of Chicago closer to its fiery end, with a death toll of 10 million the estimated loss of life, composer Volker Bertelmann’s short burst of pulsating notes ramps up the horror and tension while Barry Ackroyd’s cinematography becomes starker. Where will it all end? Are there really no options left? These are the important questions that are posed and left to the audience to answer.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Screenplay: Noah Oppenheim
Cast: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke
Producers: Kathryn Bigelow, Greg Shapiro, Noah Oppenheim
Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd
Editing: Kirk Baxter
Production design: Jeremy Hindle
Costume design: Sarah Edwards
Music: Volker Bertelmann
Sound: Paul N.J. Ottoson
Production companies: First Light Pictures, Kingsgate Films, Prologue Entertainment
International distribution: Netflix
Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition)
In English
112 minutes
