Bestowed upon a privileged handful, the mantle of Acclaimed Auteur can serve as both a crown and a burden. On the favorable side, it can act as a safeguard: when viewing the works of an celebrated director through this perspective, cinema analysts may feel pressured to defend even their least successful efforts. (The logic is that a disappointing film by a Renowned Director is still more valuable than the best work of a routine filmmaker.) One drawback is that such accolades can restrict a creative to a constrained space, searching only for material suitable for a Acclaimed Auteur; another is that the disappointment when a project doesn't spark is even more pronounced. A notable test case has recently arrived on Netflix in the Kathryn Bigelow-directed A House of Dynamite, a minor effort that – if messages from film buff friends are any indication – seems nailed on for only one recognition this season: that for Most Notable Misfire.
Looking Back at the Filmmaker's Journey
To understand why the film has disappointed many, we must examine the filmmaker's trajectory. Bigelow established her acclaim with a series of versatile and dynamic movies: motorcycle drama The Loveless, the rangy vamp saga Near Dark, police drama Blue Steel, the enduring action film starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze Point Break. A more definite sign of her artistic path came with the underrated mid-90s release Strange Days, an intense near-future drama, shaped by the Rodney King incident, which also served as a cautionary fable about the dangers of rejecting actuality to seek shelter in the digital world. (Bigelow proved more alert to this than her former husband and collaborator James Cameron, currently prepping the release of Avatar 3.) Yet after the events of 2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her homeland – was pushed into a reactive stance. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty tackled America’s contemporary conflicts in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the summer of Charlottesville, entered into a heated debate with the country’s long history of racism.
One can appreciate why a director with this background might be drawn towards Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the former NBC News chief who wrote Netflix’s new project featuring De Niro Zero Day – and why the streamer would strongly support a missile crisis drama after Oppenheimer’s Oscars sweep. (One idea for the new film: a contemporary version of Oppenheimer?)
What Works and What Doesn't
Dynamite is at its most effective early on, portraying in a realistic timeframe the brief period in which a missile launched somewhere in the Pacific by unidentified actors is detected by sensors of a US army base in Alaska and alerted to the White House situation room, heading for what everyone learns is its target: central Chicago. In this initial part, Bigelow and Oppenheim briskly accelerate the stakes while undertaking an fascinating time-based suspense: we’re left pondering where this two-hour film can possibly proceed once the countdown clock hits zero.
The answer – and at this point the frustrations emerge – is back to the beginning: the film then shifts between the perspectives of those senior officials (Tracy Letts’ military officer, defense secretary Jared Harris and commander-in-chief Idris Elba) the prologue briefly seen or mentioned. Structurally, the film is unable to advance: it’s a two-hour movie with less than twenty minutes of story, leaving Oppenheim to return to the initial segment again and again, every iteration adding on debated technical details while moving all parties toward the anticipated detonation. Earlier Bigelow films had a firm hold on stimulus and response; her finest achievements as a Esteemed Director, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were inherently about outcomes. But here, the triggering event is also the concluding action; the story becomes engaging at the exact moment the film concludes. The figures are left wondering: “Is this the end?” We are, too, for different reasons.
Visual and Thematic Shortcomings
While the plot spins in ever decreasing circles, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve plenty of opportunity to ponder the negative impact streaming budgets has had on the aesthetic of Hollywood productions. 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 current streaming offerings employing identical backdrops, including even Zero Day. If Bigelow the Noted Visual Film-maker disappears, so too does Bigelow the Celebrated Female Auteur: Rebecca Ferguson, introduced in that initial segment as potentially another of this director’s strong female professionals, exits prematurely, so yet again it’s the responsibility of a group of serious male figures to try to stop doomsday. The passion Bigelow contributed to her grittier initial successes vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s box office disappointment, the film-maker felt she had to restrain her risk-taking, but a script this talky required some balancing visual flair.
Central Dread and Concluding Thoughts
The dread A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t global eradication, but a artist's anxiety of being considered inadequate; becoming rigid and almost petrifying as it progresses, it’s understandable the film should have been eclipsed by current, reshaping incidents. What this screenplay presumes is that those occupying positions of operational authority would be trained specialists, deeply responsible and that the biggest threat to Chicago in late 2025 would come from some place other than 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 in a gray area of oversight, diversion and total insignificance – instead spends a dull two-hour runtime struggling aimlessly outdated. It’s lacking in drama by design: even before the unauthorized projectile first appears on sensors, the United States Bigelow’s film portrays has been shattered completely.
