Bestowed upon a select group, the designation of Noted Film-maker can serve as an honor and a weight. On the favorable side, it can act as a safeguard: when viewing the works of an distinguished director through this lens, auteurist critics may feel compelled to make excuses for even their poorest efforts. (The logic is that a subpar film by a Noted Film-maker is still better than the best work of a jobbing hack.) One disadvantage is that such honorifics can restrict a creative to a very narrow courtyard, seeking out material worthy of a Noted Film-maker; another is that the disappointment when a project doesn't spark is significantly amplified. A notable test case has recently arrived on Netflix in the film by Kathryn Bigelow A House of Dynamite, a not-so-heavy-hitter that – if feedback from movie enthusiasts are any indication – seems assured of only one recognition this season: that for Most Notable Misfire.
Retracing the Director's Steps
To determine why the film has underwhelmed so, we must retrace its director's steps. Bigelow established her acclaim with a run of versatile and dynamic movies: biker flick The Loveless, the sprawling undead story Near Dark, police drama Blue Steel, the classic Keanu/Swayze actioner Point Break. Clearer indication of her creative evolution came with the overlooked 1995 film Strange Days, an electrifying near-future drama, influenced by the Rodney King incident, which also served as a cautionary fable about the perils of abandoning reality to seek shelter in the simulated environment. (Bigelow proved more alert to this than her screenwriter/ex-husband James Cameron, now preparing the release of Avatar 3.) Yet following the turn of the millennium, with her fame expanding, Bigelow – like her homeland – was compelled to respond to external pressures. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty addressed America’s recent military engagements in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the time of national tension, entered into a fractious conversation with the country’s long history of racism.
It's easy to see why a artist following this path might be drawn towards Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who scripted Netflix’s latest show starring Robert De Niro Zero Day – and why the streamer would strongly support a atomic anxiety film after Oppenheimer’s Academy Awards dominance. (One concept for the new film: what if Oppenheimer, but now?)
High Points and Low Points
Dynamite is at its most effective early on, portraying in a realistic timeframe the short interval in which a missile launched somewhere in the Pacific by unknown parties is detected by sensors of a American military installation in Alaska and flagged to the executive briefing area, en route towards what everyone learns is its destination: the heart of Chicago. In this initial part, Bigelow and Oppenheim rapidly increase the drama while engaging in an intriguing temporal brinkmanship: we’re made to question where this full-length production can possibly proceed once the timer reaches zero.
The outcome – and this is where the letdowns start – is back to the beginning: the film later moves between the perspectives of those top leaders (Tracy Letts’ military officer, secretary of defence Jared Harris and president Idris Elba) the opening scene briefly seen or mentioned. Structurally, the film can’t develop: it’s a lengthy film with fewer than 20 minutes of plot, leaving Oppenheim to rehash the opening section multiple times, every iteration trowelling on moot procedural points while moving all parties toward the anticipated detonation. Prior Bigelow films had a strong control on action and consequence; her best films as a Acclaimed Auteur, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were inherently about outcomes. But here, the catalytic moment is also the final play; the drama gets interesting at the exact moment the film concludes. The figures are left wondering: “Is this all?” We are, too, for distinct motivations.
Aesthetic and Narrative Flaws
While the scenario revolves in shrinking loops, like a doomy Groundhog Day, we’ve sufficient moments to ponder the negative impact streaming budgets has had on the aesthetic of U.S. films. Even on the large screen, Dynamite struck the eye as flatly familiar, Barry Ackroyd’s rushed shaky camerawork reminiscent of 24 or The West Wing or modern platform releases reusing familiar locations, including even Zero Day. If Bigelow the Esteemed Stylistic Director fades away, so too does Bigelow the Noted Feminist Film-maker: Rebecca Ferguson, sketched in that initial segment as perhaps an additional of this director’s strong female professionals, leaves the story too soon, so once more it’s left to a collection of stern males to try to stop doomsday. The energy Bigelow brought to her pulpier breakthrough films is lost in this project; maybe after Detroit’s box office disappointment, the director felt she had to curb her bold choices, but a script this dialogue-heavy required some compensatory pyrotechnics.
Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment
The fear A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t global eradication, but a filmmaker's fear of being thought unworthy; tensing up and virtually solidifying as it progresses, it’s not unexpected the film should have been eclipsed by recent, recontextualising events. What this story presumes is that those occupying positions of operational authority would be qualified professionals, conscientious to the core and that the greatest danger to Chicago in late 2025 would come from an origin beyond the White House. Where previous Bigelow films felt like deeply committed examinations on their moment, Dynamite – the first of this director’s recent works to fall in the space between oversight, diversion and total insignificance – instead spends a pair of lethargic hours clawing futilely out of touch. It’s devoid of suspense intentionally: even before the stray rocket first appears on sensors, the United States Bigelow’s film depicts has been destroyed utterly.
