(Harneet Singh / Fourth Estate)

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s new film leaves unanswered questions

BY HARNEET SINGH, STAFF WRITER

Academy-Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow’s new film “A House of Dynamite” recently debuted on Netflix. 

Since “A House of Dynamite” is Bigelow’s first film since “Detroit” in 2017 and it received positive reviews from showings at the Venice Film Festival and New York Film Festival, I was looking forward to seeing it. 

I was a fan of Bigelow’s earlier films such as “Point Break” and “Strange Days.” Her 2010 film “Hurt Locker” is acclaimed and won six Academy Awards, including Best Director, which she became the first woman to win. 

I went into the film with high expectations, but was ultimately disappointed.  

(Harneet Singh / Fourth Estate)

I struggle to believe that the same director who delivered classics like “Point Break” could make “A House of Dynamite.” The movie follows the United States government’s immediate response to a nuclear missile from an unknown source, and the ensuing scramble to stop it. 

It has a unique three-act structure, where each act chronicles the same events but from different settings, including the Situation Room, Secretary of Defense, Federal Emergency Management Agency and President. 

“A House of Dynamite” has some positive aspects. It has a strong cast with big names such as Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson and Greta Lee. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd captured compelling visuals. 

The movie felt extremely realistic, capturing the various attitudes one often comes across on Capitol Hill very well. It is clear Bigelow and her team put in the time to capture the accuracy of the scenario, even eliciting a response from the U.S. Pentagon, which stated that the film was inaccurate, which is probably the best endorsement a filmmaker could get for accuracy. 

However, the film chooses to do nothing interesting with its narrative structure and the viewer ultimately ends up watching the same sequence three times. All three acts tell the same story: “nuclear weapons have no good outcome” and “people have families, so nukes are bad!” I hope no one needs a movie to tell them that.

Even after sitting through the film’s repetitive acts, the viewer gets no answers to key questions, such as who sent the bomb or what ends up happening. 

I may be a supporter of ambiguity and mysterious endings, but the viewer deserved some payoff after sitting through all that, even if it only serves to say that the fallout of a nuclear weapon is so bad that no one can fathom it.

There is no expansion on any other themes. Even points of view such as the pilots of B-52 planes — who were shown briefly onscreen without any explanation — or the woman in charge of FEMA are underused. 

For a film following a nuke, an expanded point of view of FEMA showing what happens to the civilians affected and if any steps were being taken for evacuation would have been helpful.

Nevertheless, the film’s downsides would have been alright if “A House of Dynamite” came out in a different format, such as a limited TV series. A longer format may have allowed for exploration of more ideas and themes, and would have played to Netflix’s strengths as a format.

Ultimately, the movie was lukewarm, and someone with even the most baseline knowledge and opinions on war and nuclear weapons walks away learning nothing. 

Given the tense state of the world currently, “A House of Dynamite” was a squandered opportunity to provide meaningful commentary on our time. 

For anyone even slightly aware of the state of the world and its history post-World War II, this film comes off as half-baked and, I hate to say it, a waste of time.