No event unites Americans like one that provokes fear. A prominent historical example of this came on the morning of Jan. 13, 2018, when thousands of Hawaiians received a harrowing message: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” As we know now, this was simply a false alarm — no such missile existed, and everything was fine.
But what if it wasn’t? What if there truly was a ballistic headed for the United States, leaving us with only minutes to make the most important decisions of our lifetimes?
Two-time Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow confronts this dilemma in “A House of Dynamite,” a crushingly intense and hyper-realistic situation-room thriller. Bigelow’s first feature since 2017’s “Detroit” ultimately plays like Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) written in the style of “Argo” (2012) and shot like an episode of “The Office” (2005–2013).
The film’s script, penned by “Jackie” screenwriter Noah Oppenheim, is a collage of the various intersecting viewpoints of soldiers and government officials with enough military jargon to fill its own dictionary. It starts with a moment of serenity: We quietly follow Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) as he heads to his post at an Alaskan missile-defense battalion. He arrives to work like any other day, greeting one co-worker and reprimanding another for the crumbs on his desk. Everything is fine, at least until an ominous dot appears on the station’s radar.
Cut. And suddenly we’re at the Washington D.C. home of Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson). Her child is sick and her eyes are baggy, but nonetheless she makes it to her own second home: the White House Situation Room. Once again, everything is fine until it isn’t, and Bigelow does well to document this descent. As DEFCON 4 becomes DEFCON 2 and certain officials are shepherded off to the safety of Raven Rock, there is an ever-growing sentiment of impending doom.
This feeling is not confined to the staff in D.C.; instead, there is a skin-crawling tension — perhaps desperation — that infects every character of the film’s extensive cast. Throughout, Bigelow assembles a sprawling ensemble that mirrors the chaos of a real national crisis. From National Security Agency analyst Ana Park (Greta Lee) to FEMA officer Cathy Rogers (Moses Ingram), Oppenheim’s script spans the full spectrum of voices caught in the crisis. In order to give its audience a sense of emotional connection to what would otherwise be a fairly bland tableau of characters, the film dedicates more than ample time to provide almost everyone with their own exposition. Park’s weekend getaway to a Gettysburg reenactment with her son is upended by the chaos, while General Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts) grapples with the missile’s potential to incinerate 10 million people in the greater Chicago area — a population that includes his semi-estranged daughter. There are soap operas with fewer plotlines.
To Bigelow’s credit, the film rarely feels off-track despite its many deviations from the central narrative. In fact, confusion plays to the film’s advantage. Through the abundance of military jargon and the painfully ill-coordinated logistics — the nation’s top defense agencies seem to rely on little more than Zoom for communication — one begins to understand how easily an event of mass dysfunction like this could happen. It’s a cautionary tale, since stopping a missile when it’s in flight is “[like] hitting a bullet with a bullet,” and every attempt is essentially a $50 billion “coin toss.” Interestingly enough, while the film does plenty to consider who may have sent the missile and their potential motivations — names like Kim and Vladimir get thrown around as easily as one could expect — there is little acknowledgement that the United States, too, bears responsibility for this nuclear escalation. In Bigelow’s work, America is the victim; in real life, it would be anything but.
Still, the film does show that the processes meant to divert such attacks are largely dysfunctional. Even the President (Idris Elba) barely knows what he’s doing: To him, the nuclear launch instructions are no easier to understand than a diner menu. In an earlier scene, his photoshoot with WNBA star Angel Reese gets interrupted by a swarm of secret servicemen, a strong juxtaposition of optics and responsibility.
While there is no doubt that “A House of Dynamite” is a gripping thriller that makes excellent use of its 112-minute runtime, whether it provides a necessary or fulfilling narrative is a more difficult question to answer.
Aside from the work of Ferguson, Letts and at times Elba, the film’s performances are largely forgettable. Perhaps the film itself is, too. But even if “A House of Dynamite” doesn’t quite detonate emotionally, it’s hard to deny that Bigelow remains one of the most precise filmmakers working today. Though more could have been drawn from its premise, it still captures the dread felt by Hawaiians in 2018 — seen, for example, in Idris Elba’s fictional president: the same dread felt by anyone who watches the news today.
“A House of Dynamite” (2025) premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. It is slated for a U.S. theatrical release on Oct. 10 and streams on Netflix on Oct. 24.
