Kathyrn Bigelow's A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE

 

.........

You do realize if this were to ever happen in reality, the person who currently is in the Potus position would be like: "yeah? F*** Chicago, all those low lifes, they didn't even vote for me. Bad people there. Let's goooo." 🤔 

This is, as a kid or adult might say, Totally Fine as a piece of engrossing drama-thriller moviemaking, and I get the idea behind the structure (not putting down Bigelow for mainlining The Last Duel, probably will be Sir Ridley's final great film, but I digress). The hottest of Hot Pocket takes? Maybe though, contrary to Paul Schrader's opinion, is that the actual gutsy move is not greenlighting the movie (the main message here is something that most Americans do get behind) would have been not having the President as a character we see. Like, at all.

I know that means we don't have Idris Elba in this role, and Elba brings gravitas and shows some conflict as much as he can, but I think the fact that we don't see Potus on screen, as a character for those first two thirds, was the most interesting thing about the film (at least as far as showing thr Chain of Command sort of thing, like as an audience we can put someone we might *picture). Unintentional as a comment but, hear me out, what if the President is not as powerful as he once was and really it is everyone else in all of the command centers doing their professional best that stands out in times of cataclysmic ruin. What if say the last third were just... regular citizens going about their last 20 minutes?

Maybe I am over-thinking it. But for all of its narrative ambition and (appropriately) deathly serious implications at the subject matter and why - this is the implied argument, I think, but I am a registered Peacenik when it comes to nuclear war - just having nuclear weapons at all is a fool's errand at best, the film is kind of undercooked as drama. 

When you watch something like Fail Safe, there isn't necessarily a ton of Who Is This Person/Their Families style of Characterization, but it is all about actions and reactions and that builds up the characters in that. In this, jumping between several points of view over the same 19 minutes means we don't get as much time to even have that action/reaction (save for Tracy Letts and Rebecca Ferguson, who do a lot with a little).

The acting does carry this just over into the positive column as a viewing experience, but it is by a fingernail. And there are actually a couple of genuinely surprising beats in final third (that one guy, whoa). At the same time some of the actors here feel like their presence is so fleeting it is less "oh, that person is bringing a lot of emotional stakes and she reminds me of so and so I know" or something like that than "oh, I recognize Kaitlyn Dever, wait, that's it?" And while this certainly can end on a note of uncertainty, I wasn't convinced *that* note was the one to go out on.

House of Dynamite is the kind of film I am glad exists for maybe somewhere, some day to see (maybe it will connect with some official in the years to come who will put forward a real good faith effort to nuclear disarmament). For right now? It is... fine.

(*right now, definitely *not* who I am picturing. Fuuuuuuuck, man).