Bestowed upon an elite few, the designation of Acclaimed Auteur can serve as a source of pride and pressure. On the beneficial side, it can offer protection: when viewing the works of an distinguished director through this prism, auteurist critics may feel pressured to defend even their poorest efforts. (The logic is that a disappointing film by a Noted Film-maker is still more valuable than the best work of a routine filmmaker.) One downside is that such honorifics can restrict a creative to a tight creative box, searching only for material suitable for a Acclaimed Auteur; another is that the dismay when a project doesn't spark is all the greater. A high-profile instance has made its way to 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 Gravest Disappointment.
Looking Back at the Filmmaker's Journey
To ascertain the reasons the film has underwhelmed so, we must look back at Bigelow's career. Bigelow built her reputation with a succession of versatile and dynamic movies: motorcycle drama The Loveless, the rangy vamp saga Near Dark, police drama Blue Steel, the timeless Keanu/Swayze actioner Point Break. Clearer indication of her artistic path came with the overlooked 1995 film Strange Days, an gripping future-now thriller, shaped by the Rodney King incident, which also doubled as a warning tale 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, currently prepping the release of Avatar 3.) Yet post-2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her native country – 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 time of national tension, entered into a fractious conversation with the country’s extended past of racism.
It's easy to see why a director with this background might be interested in Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who penned Netflix’s new project featuring De Niro Zero Day – and why the service would strongly support a atomic anxiety film after Oppenheimer’s Oscars sweep. (One pitch for the new film: imagine Oppenheimer in the present day?)
The Film's Strengths and Weaknesses
Dynamite is at its strongest early on, portraying in a realistic timeframe the brief period in which a missile launched somewhere in the Pacific Ocean by unidentified actors is detected by sensors of a United States outpost 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 initial part, Bigelow and Oppenheim quickly raise the tension while participating in an fascinating time-based suspense: we’re made to question where this full-length production can possibly proceed once the timer expires.
The answer – and here’s where the disappointments begin – is back to the beginning: the film subsequently shuffles between the angles of those top leaders (Tracy Letts’ general, defense secretary Jared Harris and president Idris Elba) the introduction glimpsed or heard only in passing. From a narrative standpoint, the film can’t develop: it’s a lengthy film with less than twenty minutes of story, leaving Oppenheim to rehash the opening section repeatedly, every iteration layering on debated technical details while moving all parties toward the dreaded big bang. Previous Bigelow films had a tight grip on stimulus and response; her most successful works as a Acclaimed Auteur, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were definitionally all consequence. But here, the inciting incident is also the endgame; the story becomes engaging at the exact moment the film concludes. The characters are left wondering: “Is this the end?” We are, too, for separate causes.
Stylistic and Conceptual Issues
While the plot spins in ever decreasing circles, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve sufficient moments to ponder the deleterious effect platform financing has had on the aesthetic of Hollywood productions. Even on the big screen, Dynamite appeared as uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s cursory handheld lensing reminiscent of 24 or The West Wing or recent Netflix content employing identical backdrops, including even Zero Day. If Bigelow the Acclaimed Visual Artist vanishes, so too does Bigelow the Noted Feminist Film-maker: Rebecca Ferguson, sketched in that beginning part as perhaps an additional of this director’s strong female professionals, leaves the story too soon, so again it’s left to a cabal of frowning men to try to prevent the world’s end. The verve Bigelow contributed to her more genre-oriented early hits disappears alongside her; maybe after Detroit’s commercial underperformance, the film-maker felt she had to curb her experimental tendencies, but a script this talky required some balancing visual flair.
Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment
The anxiety A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t atomic destruction, but a filmmaker's fear of being considered inadequate; becoming rigid and almost petrifying as it unfolds, it’s hardly surprising the film should have been surpassed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this story takes for granted is that those in charge of critical decisions would be qualified professionals, fundamentally diligent and that the biggest threat to Chicago in late 2025 would come from some place other than the White House. Where previous Bigelow films felt like intensely involved commentaries on their time, Dynamite – the initial of this director’s newer films to fall in a gray area of neglect, diversion and complete unimportance – instead spends a dull two-hour runtime clawing futilely behind the curve. It’s devoid of suspense intentionally: even before the stray rocket first is detected, the America Bigelow’s film depicts has been blown to smithereens.
