Late in “A House of Dynamite,” Gen. Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts), a senior official with United States Strategic Command, is trying to talk the president (Idris Elba) into nuking every single one of America’s enemies.
The retaliation comes in response to a lone missile sent by an unknown assailant that, in just a few minutes, will strike Chicago, wiping out the entire city’s population in a matter of seconds. The president is having a hard time fathoming the possibility of blowing up innocent people (slightly hard to believe given this country’s militaristic past, but I’ll allow it for now), particularly when they don’t know who sent the missile and why.
“This is insanity,” the president says. “No sir,” responds Brady, a cold, resolute look on his face. “This is reality.”
That exchange adequately captures how it feels to be a citizen lately in the country we call home, but “A House of Dynamite” – written by Noah Oppenheim and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, her first feature film in nearly 10 years – is not really interested in making itself an allegory for the current state of American politics. The film follows the same events from three different angles, capturing the last 20 or so minutes before the bomb hits as numerous members of the U.S. security apparatus do their best to stop it.
There’s a very old school feeling to “A House of Dynamite,” almost like a cry back to the America of “The West Wing” – people trying to do their jobs to the best of their ability, their competence on full display (so, definitely not an allegory for our current administration). But this is a surface level read of a film that is trying to get at something much deeper and more harrowing. “A House of Dynamite” is far less concerned with competence or lack thereof, and more concerned with what war means in the nuclear era. After all, it doesn’t matter how good you are at your job when you’re facing down nuclear annihilation.
However well “A House of Dynamite” sets up its tension, it is not without its flaws. The “Rashomon” set up gets a little tired by the third time the story rolls around, but its actors, for the most part, are able to push it through. “A House of Dynamite” is missing some of the visual prowess of Bigelow’s prior films, evoking an episode of “Succession” more than anything else, down to the shaky cams and quick zooms. It’s not very exciting to look at, but it is procedural, emphasizing the routine of the day for these characters – until, of course, it’s not so routine anymore.
The first third of “A House of Dynamite” is its best – not just because it’s the first time you see the action play out, but also because it features the character that best represents the thematic core of the film. We meet Capt. Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) at 3:30 a.m., getting in some quality time with her child before she heads off to the Situation Room. She’s juggling motherhood, a great marriage, and one of the most stressful jobs in the world, but she doesn’t let that phase her. Everybody turns to her for answers. She’s adaptable and cool under pressure. She lays into a new reporter (Willa Fitzgerald) for ordering something at the commissary that will take too long and hold everyone up. In short, she knows the score of the White House better than anyone.
Ferguson delivers one of the film’s best performances (when she disappears for the next two acts, you desperately want her back). She feels like she walked straight off of the set of “Homeland,” stepping into Walker’s authority with a wise-cracking, fast-talking attitude. But, for as good as Walker is under pressure, even she – the most competent person in the room – cannot save the day. As the truth of inevitability sinks in, Walker’s stiff upper lip melts away into shock and disbelief.
In everyone’s reaction to the missile, “A House of Dynamite” is juggling two extremes: that we are so inconsequential, so miniscule, in the face of this weapon, but also that we (Americans, specifically) imagine ourselves so big and powerful that this could never happen to us. When the missile is first detected – even after they determine that it is, in fact, real – people are still acting normally. Brady can’t stop talking about how good Francisco Lindor is at baseball, and someone in the Situation Room cracks that one of his colleagues, SCPO William Davis (Malachi Beasley), must have staged the missile because he’s afraid to propose to his girlfriend.
This is a defense mechanism, sure. But as the missile gets closer to making contact, you get the sense that most of these people do not really believe that – or at least, cannot grasp the reality that – this is going to happen. This sets the film apart from a movie like Sidney Lumet’s 1964 masterpiece “Fail Safe,” in which you get the sense that those characters, even if they couldn’t imagine the worst of it, constantly walk around with the fear of nuclear war at their back. “In A House of Dynamite,” the stronger sense is that no one believed that this could ever happen on American soil.
Your mileage may vary on how Bigelow handles that idea, especially considering the U.S. government’s bombing of other nations over the years – people who also had families, and jobs, and lives to lead. But the emphasis on the characters’ disbelief drives home a warning, wrapped up neatly in an entertaining thriller about competent people failing spectacularly: missiles and bombs don’t care how smart you are.