In June, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, published a self-penned essay in the magazine on what he termed “nuclear roulette”: “as a species, we are not particularly skilled at making time-pressured, closely reasoned decisions about matters of life and death,” he wrote. Kathryn Bigelow’s riveting new thriller underlines the truth of his assertion. The premise here is simple. A rogue nuclear weapon is fast heading toward Chicago. In a state of mounting panic and disbelief, US military and political leaders are desperately trying to stop it – and to come up with an appropriate response to whomever launched it. If they call it wrong, annihilation beckons.
A House of Dynamite (which premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival) stands as a grim and timely warning about the renewed dangers of nuclear proliferation. Another way of looking at it, though, is as the most entertaining Hollywood movie on the subject of potential mass destruction since Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. Unlike Kubrick, Bigelow doesn’t offer much humour – satirical or otherwise – but this is a white knuckle ride of a movie in which the tension is ratcheted up to near breaking point early on, and then simply keeps on rising. German composer Volker Bertelmann’s ominous score, heavy on the strident strings, puts viewers on edge even more.
The filmmakers have clearly done their research. We are subjected to a blizzard of acronyms and technical jargon: ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) and GBIs (Ground-Based Interceptors), and so forth. Action unfolds in cramped situation rooms and emergency operation centres. It’s a measure of Bigelow’s storytelling abilities that a movie that consists almost entirely of people talking still seems so suspenseful.
The director plays exhaustive attention to body language. The closer the missile comes to the mainland US, the more defensive the posture of all the protagonists. Almost everybody folds their arms. Characters twist their wedding rings. Officers and politicians scowl and pull increasingly long faces. There are lots of close-ups of sweaty, anxiety-ridden Washington insiders. As viewers, we feel and share their discomfort.
Noah Oppenheim’s ingeniously structured screenplay replays the same incidents from different perspectives and in different locations. Idris Elba, as the president of the United States, isn’t seen in the first part of the movie. Instead he is heard at the other end of phone lines as his panicked staff brief him about his options.
The film briefly sketches the private lives of some of the main characters. Senior official Liv Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) has a sickly child. Tracy Letts, as the Sterling Hayden-like military commander, can’t stop talking about the previous night’s ball game. Secretary of Defence Jared Harris is briefly seen playing golf and frets constantly about his daughter. The White House’s main expert on North Korea (Greta Lee) is on a day out with her son, ironically at a reconstruction of the Battle of Gettysburg.
At first there is disbelief when the alarm sirens go off. Even when they accept there is indeed an emergency, the officials all expect the military to sort it out. Surely with all that US hardware and know-how, they can neutralise the nuke? Then comes that awful sinking feeling, as none of the defence systems seem to do their job.
Inevitably, gallows humour soon creeps in, whether intentional or not, simply because the situation is so extreme and so absurd. Certain lines here – “there is no plan B”; “in a little over seven minutes, we will lose the city of Chicago” – could come straight out of the cheesiest of disaster movies. “This is insanity,” someone yells late in the film. “No, it’s reality,” comes the reply.
Seventeen years ago, Bigelow became the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker (2008). Whether or not she accomplishes a similar feat with A House of Dynamite – becoming the first woman to win two – this new feature shows that when it comes to intelligent, adrenalin-filled drama, she is still out there on her own.
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow. Starring: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke. Cert 15, 112 mins.
‘A House of Dynamite’ is in cinemas from 3 October, and streams on Netflix from 24 October
