Bestowed upon an elite few, the mantle of Noted Film-maker can serve as both a crown and a burden. On the positive side, it can provide a shield: when viewing the works of an celebrated director through this prism, auteurist critics may feel pressured to make excuses for even their weakest efforts. (The rationale 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 honorifics can restrict a creative to a very narrow courtyard, pursuing exclusively material befitting a Acclaimed Auteur; another is that the frustration when a project doesn't spark is all the greater. A notable test case has recently arrived on Netflix in the latest from Bigelow A House of Dynamite, a minor effort that – if messages from film buff friends are any measure – seems destined for only one honor this season: that for Gravest Disappointment.
Retracing the Director's Steps
To ascertain the reasons the film has disappointed many, we must examine the filmmaker's trajectory. Bigelow earned her laurels with a run of broad, agile genre films: motorcycle drama The Loveless, the rangy vamp saga Near Dark, police drama Blue Steel, the enduring Keanu/Swayze actioner Point Break. A more definite sign of her direction of travel came with the underrated mid-90s release Strange Days, an electrifying future-now thriller, shaped by the Rodney King incident, which also served as a warning tale about the risks of rejecting actuality to take cover in the simulated environment. (Bigelow proved more alert to this than her ex-partner and writer James Cameron, now preparing the release of Avatar 3.) Yet post-2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her homeland – was pushed into a reactive stance. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty broached America’s recent military engagements in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the time of national tension, entered into a heated debate with the country’s extended past of racism.
One can appreciate why a artist following this path might be attracted to Dynamite’s script – written by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who penned Netflix’s new project featuring De Niro Zero Day – and why the streamer would strongly support a missile crisis drama after Oppenheimer’s Academy Awards dominance. (One pitch for the new film: a contemporary version of Oppenheimer?)
What Works and What Doesn't
Dynamite is at its most effective early on, depicting in near real-time the 19 minutes in which a projectile fired somewhere in the Pacific by mysterious forces is picked up on screens of a American military installation in Alaska and reported to the White House situation room, en route towards what everyone learns is its destination: the heart of Chicago. In this first section, Bigelow and Oppenheim briskly accelerate the stakes while participating in an intriguing temporal brinkmanship: we’re set to wondering where this feature-length movie can possibly head once the timer reaches zero.
The outcome – and at this point the frustrations emerge – is a return to the start: the film later moves between the viewpoints of those top leaders (Tracy Letts’ military officer, defense secretary Jared Harris and president Idris Elba) the introduction briefly seen or mentioned. In terms of construction, the film can’t develop: it’s a lengthy film with a minimal narrative arc, leaving Oppenheim to rehash the opening section multiple times, every iteration trowelling on contested bureaucratic steps while edging everybody closer the dreaded big bang. Prior Bigelow films had a strong control on stimulus and response; her best films as a Noted Film-maker, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were inherently about outcomes. But here, the catalytic moment is also the endgame; the story becomes engaging at the exact moment the film concludes. The personas are left wondering: “Is this the end?” We are, too, for distinct motivations.
Visual and Thematic Shortcomings
While the plot revolves in shrinking loops, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve ample time to reflect on the negative impact streaming budgets has had on the aesthetic of Hollywood productions. Even on the large screen, Dynamite appeared as flatly familiar, Barry Ackroyd’s hasty mobile filming recalling 24 or The West Wing or modern platform releases reusing familiar locations, 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, sketched in that beginning part as possibly one more of this director’s strong female professionals, exits prematurely, so yet again it’s up to a collection of stern males to try to prevent the world’s end. The energy Bigelow contributed to her pulpier breakthrough films is lost in this project; maybe after Detroit’s commercial underperformance, the director felt she had to rein in her bold choices, but a script this dialogue-heavy required some compensatory pyrotechnics.
Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment
The dread A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t nuclear annihilation, but a artist's anxiety of being deemed insufficient; becoming rigid and almost petrifying as it goes along, it’s understandable the film should have been eclipsed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this screenplay assumes is that those holding roles of command would be trained specialists, deeply responsible and that the biggest threat to Chicago in the end of 2025 would come from an origin beyond the White House. Where earlier Bigelow films felt like intensely involved commentaries on their moment, Dynamite – the initial of this director’s latest projects to fall somewhere between neglect, diversion and complete unimportance – instead spends a dull two-hour runtime clawing futilely behind the curve. It’s not tense for a reason: even before the stray rocket first is detected, the United States Bigelow’s film describes has been shattered completely.
