A military expert has praised one aspect of the new Netflix film A House of Dynamite, which has become a huge streaming hit, despite being criticised for inaccuracies.
The political thriller, from Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow, depicts a scenario where a nuclear weapon is fired at the US by an unidentified foe.
From three different perspectives – first from the White House Situation Room, then from the United States Strategic Command, and finally from the President himself, the film repeatedly tracks the 20 minutes after the weapon’s launch and the complex, world-changing decisions that officials might have to make in such a situation.
The film, starring Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris and Tracy Letts, shot to the top of the Netflix streaming charts following its addition to the platform on October 24. However, it has been criticised by viewers for its underwhelming ending and by experts for presenting incorrect information.
However, Stephen Flynn, a director of the Global Resilience Institute at America’s Northeastern University, who also worked as a White House military officer under President George HW Bush, believes the film achieves its goal of scaring people about the devastating capabilities of nuclear war.
“It [the film] scares the bejesus out of people, and there’s good reason for doing that, because the threat of this kind of thing never goes away,” he told The Telegraph. “It should always be top of our leaders’ minds.”
A House of Dynamite has come under criticism from the actual US government, with the Pentagon issuing a statement about it’s depiction of the United States’ missile defense system.
At one point in the film, the defense secretary, played by Harris, complains that current missile defenses have just a 50 per cent chance of intercepting the missile despite costing $50 billion.
In an internal memorandum from the Missile Defense Agency obtained by Bloomberg and dated October 16, the agency states that while the film “highlights that deterrence can fail, which reinforces the need for an active homeland missile defense system,” its fictional depiction also downplays US capabilities.
“The fictional interceptors in the movie miss their target and we understand this is intended to be a compelling part of the drama intended for the entertainment of the audience,” but results from real-world testing “tell a vastly different story,” the memo reportedly states.
The MDA adds that Harris’s character’s 50 per cent claim is based on earlier prototypes and today’s interceptors “have displayed a 100 per cent accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade.”
In a statement to Bloomberg News, the Pentagon said that it wasn’t consulted for the film, which “does not reflect the views or priorities of this administration.” The system “remains a critical component of our national defense strategy, ensuring the safety and security of the American people and our allies.”
A representative for Bigelow directed Bloomberg to her remarks on CBS’s Sunday Morning, in which she confirmed she did not seek consultation from the Pentagon.
“I felt that we needed to be more independent,” she explained. “But that being said, we had multiple tech advisers who have worked in the Pentagon. They were with me every day we shot.”
In a four-star review for The Independent, Geoffrey Macnab called it “the most entertaining movie about mass destruction since Dr Strangelove.”
“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, adrenaline-filled drama, she is still out there on her own.”
