The Reel Review
When an unidentified enemy launches a nuclear missile from the Pacific Ocean towards Chicago, the U.S. president, government and military officials have just 18 minutes to determine its source, attempt to shoot it down, determine if it was intentional, and if so, decide whether to retaliate. Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts and Greta Lee star in this apocalyptic thriller.
There are a whole lot of people staring at monitors in this pulse-pounding thriller from Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty). It is told from different perspectives in three separate chapters, each of which starts with characters dealing with normal everyday issues that are quickly forgotten as they learn of the missile launch. The intensifying situation results in a myriad of challenges – technical malfunctions, communications issues and unavailable decision makers, as well as emerging personal agendas, as key individuals juggle doing their jobs with trying to warn loved ones to evacuate. Bigelow and former NBC News president/screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (Zero Day, Jackie, The Maze Runner) capture a chaotic situation.
But despite Bigelow’s accurate production design and the tension-inducing score, A House of Dynamite falls short in its execution due to its screenplay. The three chapter technique, rather than fitting together like a revelatory jigsaw puzzle, instead feels repetitive and dull with corny dialogue – all of which keeps the film from living up to its full potential.
REEL FACTS
• Kathryn Bigelow was the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar, for 2008’s The Hurt Locker.
• A real-life panic occurred in Hawaii on January 13, 2018, when a statewide alert over TV, radio and cellular networks was accidentally issued via the Emergency Alert System, instructing individuals to seek shelter due to an incoming ballistic missile. 38 minutes later, state officials blamed a miscommunication during an emergency drill for the erroneous message, which eventually resulted in the resignation of the state’s emergency management administrator.
• Experts say the likelihood of a rogue missile strike from an unidentified source, as depicted in the film, is highly unlikely, and that a missile strike would more likely be the result of an escalating war between known combatants.
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