When Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear countdown thriller “A House of Dynamite” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in early September, it was greeted with a chorus of praise. Nearly all critics called the film tense, dazzling, biting, and raved about what they considered Bigelow’s breathtaking craftsmanship. It was clear to me that I had seen an entirely different film – an overheated but “out of breath” piece of apocalyptic pulp that repeated the same scenario three times (a rogue nuclear bomb hurtles towards Chicago, where it is ready to fall and explode in 20 minutes), with less effectiveness each time.
For me, “A House of Dynamite” didn’t feel right at all as if it had been directed by the filmmaker of “Zero Dark Thirty” and “The Hurt Locker”. This one felt like over-the-top TV, with too much caffeinated camera jitter, too many unconvincing but straightforward “everyday” moments, and too much hambone playing (I’ve never seen Jared Harris, who plays the Secretary of Defense, give this downright over-the-top performance). The film seemed to me to be a disaster film that takes itself seriously.
But this last element — the fact that he do taking itself seriously – turned out to be the bait that attracted criticism. What the reviews I read and people I had conversations with seemed to say was that “A House of Dynamite” was a movie they watched with white knuckles, hearts in their throats, and a prolonged spasm of dread because the movie hit them with the force of a cathartic reality check. It had been a long time since they had thought about the possibility of nuclear war. And this movie did more than just make you think about it. This demonstrated that this possibility was far more likely than any of us would like to believe.
But does the film really demonstrate this? Or is it simply affirm without any evidence and with a scenario that strains beliefs because it makes almost no sense, even under its own trigger conditions?
If you came away from “A House of Dynamite” thinking that a nuclear conflagration might be imminent and this is the film that took your eyes out, you could argue that that makes it, by definition, an effective film. But what I actually think is that it’s an exploitation film. “A House of Dynamite” strives to stir up our anxieties, but it does so in much the same way as the disaster films of the ’70s: by presenting a cataclysm of the sum of all fears as if it were “reality.”
The nugget of the film’s apocalyptic narrative, which is no longer illuminated each time it is told, boils down to this: the rogue nuclear weapon, launched by us-no-idea-who, is heading toward the United States, and despite all of our advanced military defense systems. there’s no way to stop it. This, the film claims, is the real reality, the one that the powers that be want you to forget. The film suggests that our defense systems are akin to some sort of Ponzi scheme, that the government has created a grand illusion of national security. But now, finally, watching this film, the truth can be told: this is all 10 times more precarious than we thought. Sweet dreams!
Bigelow and his screenwriter, Noah Oppenheim, say they did their research and discovered how dangerous, scattered and combustible the world is that we’re all fooling ourselves into believing we don’t live in. Bigelow used a retired three-star general as a consultant but generally stayed away from the Pentagon, refusing to seek his approval. She wanted to break free from the official bureaucratic party line. Okay, that’s fair enough. But regardless of whether the film’s plot is accurate, I would be more satisfied than not if it felt accurate. Why not ? This comes down to the fact that its key probability factor is totally at war with its central metaphor.
Let me explain. In the first episode, we expect American missiles to be able to destroy this rogue nuclear bomb straight from the sky. But what we’re learning – and what everyone else in the White House Situation Room is learning too, since it seems they are as clueless as we are – is that the chances of a GBI (Ground-Based Interceptor) neutralizing this nuclear weapon are only 61 percent. This leads Harris’ Defense Secretary to exclaim: “So this is a fucking draw? This is what $50 billion buys us?” That’s quite a statement on the film’s part, and it’s meant to leave us scared.
But if this is the reality, consider this. The second episode of the film, in which the characters attempt (unsuccessfully) to determine who launched the attack, is called “A Bullet Strikes a Bullet.” This sounds like some sort of poetic fantasy, but during the course of the episode the phrase is used, very specifically, to explain why our missile defense systems are so much less effective than you or I think. The film claims that if a rogue nuclear bomb were heading full speed toward Chicago, the chances that one of our missiles could knock it out of the sky would be comparable to the chances of one bullet hitting another bullet.
For laymen, this image makes sense. A nuclear bomb fired at the United States would travel very quickly (like a ball). A missile launched to neutralize this nuclear bomb would also travel very quickly (like a ball). So one ball would have to touch the other ball. Imagine someone shooting a gun and trying to do it. What are the chances of a bullet hitting a bullet? I would say close to zero.
But wait a minute. I thought the movie just told us the chance of success in this situation was 61 percent. (Not 60 or 62 percent. 61.) It’s not the greatest of odds, but it’s not the worst either. And yet the film now tells us that the chances of success are virtually zero. So what is it? A fucking toss… or a ball hitting a ball? Do you see how “A House of Dynamite” doesn’t count? By the way, I’m no expert, but that’s not how heat-seeking missiles work.
There have been great films built around the looming prospect of nuclear attack. “Dr Strangelove” is, of course, a visionary comedy, but it is presented as a grandiose and ominous countdown to the apocalypse. “Fail Safe,” Sidney Lumet’s great nuclear thriller, was released the same year as “Dr. Strangelove” (1964), just nine months later, and in many ways it is an even more haunting film. And 25 years ago, the historical political drama “Thirteen Days,” set primarily in the Oval Office (with a definitive performance by Bruce Greenwood as JFK), depicted the inner workings of the Cuban Missile Crisis with gripping psychology and hypnotic inner realpolitik to behold. The film showed us how close we were (much closer than anyone admitted at the time, or for years after).
These three films are all, in their own way, fearless works of warning art. But “A House of Dynamite” is so hyperbolic about pushing the alarm button, all for the sake of pushing our buttons, that the most dangerous possibility the film raises is that anyone will fall into the trap.
