House of Dynamite: We saw Kathryn Bigelow’s action thriller on Netflix, and here’s what we thought of it

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One day, without warning, the radars at the Fort Greeley military base in Alaska went into a panic. A nuclear missile of unknown origin has been fired and is heading straight for American territory. The President and his entourage must take advantage of the little time they have left to try to get the missile down to Chicago.

which we liked

Backed by a pretty stellar cast, notably performances by Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, A House of Dynamite is a very informed methodical dissection of the American defense system, which Kathryn Bigelow takes great pleasure in making dysfunctional to play on our nerves.

The first part of the film is, in this sense, absolutely remarkable: an excruciating closed session in which poor American civil servants gradually collapse to the point of panic.

Sprinkled with some really good action scenes, the film gives Kathryn Bigelow the opportunity to stretch her familiar “war reporter” style even further. Thanks to him (and his talent), a simple zoom discussion can become a real war movie with colossal geopolitical stakes. A lesson for many filmmakers who will find it difficult (unreasonably) to ask for big budgets for upcoming military thrillers.

What we liked the least

Where the film has left us less convinced is on the screenplay side. House of Dynamite is a film written on the model of Akira Kurosawa’s iconic Rashomon: the same event, told several times, from different points of view. Nicknamed the “Rashomon effect”, this type of structure is applied to the letter and is sometimes difficult to work with.

for what Well, because some of the events in the movie happen through phone or video calls. Seeing the same scene again, the same dialogues, just with a different character, is not really enough of a reason to justify a change in point of view. On the contrary, it creates a ridiculous impression that the film is repetitive and its plot has difficulty moving forward.

This little disappointment also enlivens the end of the film, which we won’t spoil, but left us with a taste of unfinished business that we really didn’t expect after this adventure. We certainly want to know what you thought of it, and we will be very curious to read your Allociné reviews!

House of Dynamite is available on Netflix.