The United States finds itself within minutes of a devastating attack—and the inevitable war that would result from it—in A House of Dynamite, now streaming worldwide on Netflix. This authentic-feeling political thriller from Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), directing from a script by Noah Oppenheim, is captivating from beginning to end despite the repetitious nature of its narrative—though an ambiguous ending feels destined to put off streaming viewers expecting more straightforward storytelling.
A House of Dynamite is told from the perspective of various characters working for the U.S. government as a single nuclear missile of unidentified origin travels across the Pacific Ocean toward the United States. Countless films have charted the impending threat of nuclear disaster, from Dr. Strangelove to WarGames to The Hunt for Red October, but few as realistically and comprehensively as this one.
Despite being entirely fictional—the professionalism with which various American politicians conduct themselves can feel alien—the precision with which A House of Dynamite depicts its central event turns the film into an Oppenheimer-like wake-up call for a society that has forgotten the ever-present urgency of nuclear threats.
That precision is achieved by detailing the event—less than half an hour between the missile’s detection and its projected impact on U.S. soil—three times from various perspectives. Oppenheim’s script essentially resets itself after each act, showing us how different characters embedded within the American political system confront an imminent threat, even though the audience already knows how it will unfold by the second and third acts.
A House of Dynamite begins in the White House Situation Room, as senior officer Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) embarks on her morning shift under her director, Admiral Mark Miller (Jason Clarke). Over at Fort Greely, meanwhile, a team led by Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) has detected a missile of unknown origin over the Pacific. Over emergency conference calls, various additional characters are brought up to speed and weigh in.
While the missile is initially presumed to be a North Korean test, it becomes clear that it’s headed to the continental U.S. once it enters low orbit. Eventually, Chicago is identified as the likely point of impact, and while two Ground-Based Interceptors are deployed, one of them fails to launch its payload, and the success rate for the other is essentially “a coin flip,” Secretary of Defense Reid Baker (Jared Harris) decries.
“It’s like hitting a bullet with a bullet,” Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso) describes. In the second act of A House of Dynamite, Jake—filling in for his boss, who is MIA—relays with Russian officials and Ana Park (Greta Lee), the NSA national intelligence officer for North Korea. Baerington advises caution in the face of imminent disaster, but STRATCOM General Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts) pushes for preemptive retaliation against an unknown aggressor. As U.S. fighter jets are scrambled, Russia and China also mobilize.
The third act of the film largely follows the U.S. President (Idris Elba), who is briefly heard, but not seen, during the first two acts—he was attending a WNBA event and joins the conference call without video as he is whisked away by helicopter. Alongside him is Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves (Jonah Hauer-King), a security advisor with a black bag that contains a binder full of emergency retaliatory nuclear options.
The first act of A House of Dynamite details the central threat in riveting fashion, but it’s no less compelling during its subsequent acts; the audience knows where the missile is headed, but a greater threat begins to emerge. Ferguson is a standout during early scenes, as a stand-in for the audience who has precious little impact on central events; Basso is also impressive as the lone voice for caution. But the film’s best scenes occur between Elba and Hauer-King as two men who will essentially decide the fate of the world against a frightening number of unknowns.
As well-made as A House of Dynamite is in almost every regard, it is undeniable that the ambiguous ending is destined to turn off a great many Netflix viewers. This is not Rashomon, and while we get additional perspective over the course of the movie, the central narrative remains unchanged. By structuring the movie in the way that they do, the filmmakers make a promise to the audience at the end of the first act: stick through this non-linear narrative to find out what happens next. But that promise is not kept. If told in a more straightforward fashion, the film’s ambiguous ending would be far less problematic; it would be fascinating to compare an alternate cut of the movie.
But even with its unsatisfying ending, House of Dynamite remains an entirely gripping, edge-of-your-seat experience. Bigelow directs with the same precision and intensity that defined The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, crafting a thriller that feels uncomfortably plausible. It may not deliver complete closure, but its chilling sense of realism and mounting dread are impossible to shake.
