Bestowed upon an elite few, the title of Acclaimed Auteur can serve as a source of pride and pressure. On the favorable side, it can provide a shield: when viewing the works of an ennobled director through this prism, auteurist critics may feel compelled to defend even their least successful efforts. (The logic is that a subpar film by a Prestigious Auteur is still better than the best work of a commercial director.) One disadvantage is that such titles can restrict a creative to a constrained space, seeking out material suitable for a Esteemed Director; another is that the disappointment when a project fails to ignite is even more pronounced. A notable example has just reached Netflix in the Kathryn Bigelow-directed A House of Dynamite, a minor effort that – if texts from cinephile pals are any indication – seems nailed on for only one honor this season: that for Biggest Letdown.
Retracing the Director's Steps
To determine why the film has failed to impress, we must examine the filmmaker's trajectory. Bigelow built her reputation with a succession of expansive, limber genre pics: biker flick The Loveless, the sprawling undead story Near Dark, cop thriller Blue Steel, the enduring action film starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze Point Break. A sharper insight of her direction of travel came with the overlooked 1995 film Strange Days, an electrifying near-future drama, influenced by the events surrounding Rodney King, which also doubled as a moral story about the perils of rejecting actuality to find refuge in the digital world. (Bigelow proved more aware of this than her screenwriter/ex-husband James Cameron, at work on the release of Avatar 3.) Yet after the events of 2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her homeland – was forced on the defensive. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty addressed America’s contemporary conflicts in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the period following the Charlottesville events, entered into a fractious conversation with the country’s extended past of racism.
One can appreciate why a director with this background might be attracted to Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the ex-head of NBC News who scripted Netflix’s recent, De Niro-led series Zero Day – and why the streamer would vigorously back a nuclear-panic thriller after Oppenheimer’s Oscars sweep. (One concept for the new film: imagine Oppenheimer in the present day?)
What Works and What Doesn't
Dynamite is at its most effective early on, portraying in a realistic timeframe the short interval in which a projectile fired somewhere in the Pacific Ocean by mysterious forces is spotted on the radars of a United States outpost in Alaska and alerted to the presidential command center, heading for what everyone learns is its target: central Chicago. In this first section, Bigelow and Oppenheim briskly accelerate the stakes while engaging in an fascinating time-based suspense: we’re left pondering where this full-length production can possibly proceed once the chronometer reaches zero.
The outcome – and here’s where the disappointments begin – is back to the beginning: the film then shifts between the perspectives of those higher-ups (Tracy Letts’ general, defense secretary Jared Harris and commander-in-chief Idris Elba) the prologue glimpsed or heard only in passing. In terms of construction, the film is unable to advance: it’s a lengthy film with fewer than 20 minutes of plot, leaving Oppenheim to return to the initial segment repeatedly, each repetition trowelling on contested bureaucratic steps while moving all parties toward the dreaded big bang. Previous Bigelow films had a tight grip on cause-and-effect; her finest achievements as a Noted Film-maker, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were definitionally all consequence. But here, the catalytic moment is also the final play; the narrative captivates at the precise instant the film ends. The personas are left wondering: “Is this the end?” We are, too, for distinct motivations.
Aesthetic and Narrative Flaws
While the situation cycles in diminishing returns, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve sufficient moments to ponder the negative impact Netflix money has had on the aesthetic of U.S. films. Even on the cinema display, Dynamite appeared as uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s hasty mobile filming reminiscent of 24 or The West Wing or recent Netflix content employing identical backdrops, up to and including Zero Day. If Bigelow the Noted Visual Film-maker fades away, so too does Bigelow the Renowned Feminist Director: Rebecca Ferguson, introduced in that beginning part as potentially another of this director’s tough-minded working women, clocks off early, so once more it’s the responsibility of a group of serious male figures to try to avert global catastrophe. The verve Bigelow brought to her grittier initial successes vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s box office disappointment, the artist felt she had to curb her bold choices, but a script this talky required some balancing visual flair.
Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment
The dread A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t global eradication, but a filmmaker's fear of being deemed insufficient; tensing up and almost petrifying as it progresses, it’s understandable the film should have been surpassed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this story takes for granted is that those occupying positions of operational authority would be skilled experts, conscientious to the core and that the largest risk to Chicago in late 2025 would come from a location outside of the White House. Where earlier Bigelow films felt like fiercely engaged reflections on their era, Dynamite – the first of this director’s recent works to fall somewhere between oversight, diversion and total insignificance – instead spends a dull two-hour runtime clawing futilely outdated. It’s devoid of suspense intentionally: even before the stray rocket first is detected, the America Bigelow’s film portrays has been destroyed utterly.
