A House of Dynamite

The Point Break junkie in me thinks it's a shame that the always talented, stylish Kathryn Bigelow has in recent years mostly devoted herself to military-themed political thrillers. Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Detroit and now this apocalyptic doomsday showcase of what happens inside the White House if a stray nuclear missile without a sender enters American airspace.

The premise here is supposedly timely. War in the Middle East, war in Ukraine, war in Russia, civil war in Myanmar and an orange dictator as President of the United States, whose blunt rhetoric often invites questioning, criticism or outright mockery. In Netflix's new suspense thriller, the White House is hit with information about an incoming nuclear bomb and for 152 minutes, Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) and Secretary of Defence Reid Baker (Jared Harris), among others, have the stressful job of trying to figure out who sent the missile, where it will hit, what the counterattacks look like and against whom the US President will be forced to take revenge.

A House of Dynamite is a kind of mix between the HBO classic West Wing and the panic of the Bin Laden hunt from Zero Dark Thirty, without ever managing to capture the interesting politics of the former TV series or the nerve of Bigelow's acclaimed 9/11 drama. It's a lot of nothing, this. Lots of close-ups of stressed faces, lots of video conference calls that never seem to get anywhere, and the doomsday prophecy itself is dragged out so much by Bigelow that it starts to feel tedious after 100 minutes. There is no tension in this film, sadly enough, and even though Bigelow is routinely stylish when it comes to directing her characters, I don't think that either Ferguson or Harris give particularly credible performances.

There is, of course, a reason why Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (who also wrote Netflix's De Niro series Zero Day on the same theme) chose to structure this film the way they have. Where each character's subjective reaction to the impending doomsday is sort of replayed from square one even though the rest of the film has moved on, but for me as a viewer, it not only kills the tension and momentum, it feels a bit like an endless Groundhog Day that I basically just want to end. There's also an obvious logical gap with the whole premise that makes me tired already half an hour in. The synopsis, which consists of the question: "Who is attacking us and who should we strike back at, without really knowing for sure", of course partly alludes to the Iraq war and the CIA's flawed intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, but when it becomes clear that the US missile defence system can shoot the nuclear warhead out of the air and thus save Chicago, we naturally realise if the US now retaliates and sends its own nuclear warhead, surely only China or Russia can do the same. This builds a perpetual loop of nothingness, which itself kills the inherent nerve of the premise.

There are good things here, though. Also. Elba is perfectly fine as the President of the United States, and there are plenty of great shots from inside the White House (or something that's supposed to look like the White House). It's just not a very exciting film, and one that ultimately has nothing to say. At least nothing worth listening to.