A missile of indeterminate origin heads for the US mainland. The Executive Branch executes the well-established protocol on how to defend the US. Without knowing who launched the missile or why, all the protocol means nothing as any decision only guarantees loss of life. What is the right thing to do? Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film strives to be an apolitical cri de coeur begging for nuclear disarmament and the sanctity of human life. “A House of Dynamite” (2025) is a “Mission: Impossible” movie without the action or Tom Cruise and feels like a twenty first century’s unofficial somber prequel to “The Day After” (1983).
The scenes jump from Alaska, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Kenya, Russia, etc., but most of the action occurs in front of monitors, on cell phones or in bases. The ensemble cast is outstanding because “A House of Dynamite” is never boring. Shooting as if the film is a documentary, Kathryn Bigelow maximizes the majesty of the exterior shots to balance the claustrophobic, functional confinement of interior spaces. The only quibble: for the love of God, if you are printing essential information on screen, there should be a required test to see if someone can read it out loud or write it down before the words disappear. “A House of Dynamite” is at its most heavy handed when it prints lessons in all caps, but it also offers necessary explanations to the technical terms that the characters throw around.
Without spoiling the fun for those going into the movie with zero knowledge, the cast includes Anthony Ramos, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Clarke, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Greta Lee, Idris Elba, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kaitlyn Dever. The lesser-known actors are superb too: Moses Ingram, Gabriel Basso, Jonah Hauer-King (redeeming himself from two meh appearances in earlier 2025 releases “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and “The Threesome”). They ooze professionalism, but the momentum of “A House of Dynamite” rests on the reactions of the best actors in the world as their characters grapple with accepting the reality of a theoretical doomsday scenario.
The atmosphere is like those Seventies movies featuring competency porn where everyone is good at their job and focused, but this film is postmodern. Writer Noah Oppenheim puts a fatalistic twenty-first century spin on the genre that it does not matter how competent people are, an unleashed nuclear weapon is the equivalent of a Kobayashi Maru test. They cannot win. If Oppenheim’s name sounds familiar, he is the man who refused to unleash Ronan Farrow on Harvey Weinstein or upheld journalistic integrity. It makes sense that he wants to tell a story of guaranteed loss regardless of competence. There are heavy doses of pathos as the story reminds moviegoers and viewers at home that all these people are more than their jobs. They are partners, parents and children. They cannot help but be distracted and fall apart at the prospect of being perfect and failing.
Unfortunately, in striving to make a human, apolitical story, “A House of Dynamite” makes some errors that may reverse any appreciation garnered throughout the course of the film. The narrative structure makes the fatal error of dividing the movie into three separate acts. When each act cuts to black and refuses to reveal what POTUS decides to do, it rewinds and shifts the perspective to another group of people. It ends with the slowest segment, POTUS (Idris Elba in person, but Brian D. Coats off screen). You are never going to find out what POTUS decides, and repeating the scenes will only anger people more, especially if they misinterpret the choice as a promise of delayed gratification. Oppenheim wants to make the point that there are no right answers, but the wrong answer is to force the audience to constantly delay that conclusion by losing time that we will never get back without offering any genuinely novel revelations.
A good editor and/or director figure should know how to put all the pieces together, so every performance gets highlighted instead of forcing the audience to get stuck in a version of Groundhog’s Day without any variation to improve the result. Starting with POTUS and civilians would ease the viewers into the story. For two-thirds of the film, “A House of Dynamite” refuses to show POTUS’ face. It would feel like a loss that would haunt the entire movie as the audience waits for him to reappear but get denied. If nuclear war is here, seeing POTUS’ face will not be reassuring, and that structure change would be more impactful. It is downright subversive to deny the comfort of POTUS speaking to the nation so Americans can prepare for the worst-case scenario. It should have ended with the last White House Situation Room scene, which would have been cheesy, but the real ending resulted in groans and expletives when the closing credits started. Another alternative is Harris’ last scene.
Now more than ever, if a movie lists POTUS as one of the characters, it needs to establish early whether they are using completely fictional world or an actual president. When “A House of Dynamite” did not do that, it probably was to gain more viewers and avoid being accused of being divisive and woke. It is also an effort to be apolitical, so people are not thinking in terms of political agendas, but a human story. It is an impossible task. It just has the effect of distracting the audience from the story by wondering if it is Presidon’t at the helm or an actor playing someone else entirely. The answer changes the story. By casting a Black man, even if the actor is Elba, the choice creates inevitable consequences and hoping that people will stay because they are hooked and want to know what happens in the story is not going to work because any viewer who would be angry that a Black man is POTUS will be angry when their worst fear is realized. Either make the statement early or cast someone else. Making a movie is a creative act full of decisions so punting on basic foundational elements is not doing the movie any favors.
Knowledge is power, and luring viewers in under false pretenses will only detract from an audience genuinely interested in “A House of Dynamite” for its ambiguity, relatability and humanist principles. If you read godlessness when you see the word humanist, characters pray and reference going to church. The best scene is when a man is trying to brief important people on what to do, but security manning the metal detector demand that he put down the phone. Security theater protects no one and only mucks up the system. The constant technological failures of a screen not working, cell phone calls dropping underscore the limitations of human tools to fulfill their function, which underscores the point that nuclear arms that only hurt and do not protect.
The scariest aspect of “A House of Dynamite” is that everyone in the film seems more effective and benevolent than anything that exists now. If this scenario played out in real-life, everyone would probably cheer at the possibility of an American city’s impending doom, lie then take credit for it because they declared war on a city. Worst. Timeline. Ever.
