Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear thriller, “A House of Dynamite,” was met with widespread acclaim upon its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where critics lauded it as tense, dazzling, and nail-biting. To this viewer, however, it was an overheated piece of doomsday pulp that repeated the same scenario—a rogue nuke speeding toward Chicago—three times, with diminishing returns.
Far from the commanding filmmaking of “Zero Dark Thirty” or “The Hurt Locker,” the movie felt more like hyped-up television, marred by jittery camerawork, unconvincing slice-of-life moments, and overstated performances, particularly from Jared Harris as the Secretary of Defense. It played like a schlock disaster movie that takes itself far too seriously.
The film’s very seriousness, however, seems to be what captivated other critics. Reviewers and colleagues described watching it with white knuckles and a sense of dread, hailing it as a cathartic reality check that made the dormant threat of nuclear war feel terrifyingly immediate. They believed the movie did more than just raise the possibility; it demonstrated that such a conflict was far more likely than we care to admit.
But does the film truly demonstrate this threat, or does it merely assert it with a scenario that strains credulity on its own terms?
For those who leave the theater convinced of an imminent nuclear conflagration, the film might seem effective by definition. A more accurate label, however, may be an exploitation film. “A House of Dynamite” works hard to churn up our anxieties, much like the disaster films of the 1970s, by presenting a sum-of-all-fears cataclysm as if it were unvarnished reality.
Its apocalyptic narrative hinges on a simple premise: a rogue nuke is rocketing toward the U.S., and our advanced military defense systems are powerless to stop it. The film presents this as a hidden truth, suggesting that our national security is a grand illusion.
Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim claim their research reveals a far more combustible world than we imagine. Bigelow even consulted a retired three-star general while deliberately avoiding a Pentagon endorsement to maintain independence from the official line. Fair enough. But regardless of its accuracy, the scenario fails to feel authentic because its key probability factor is at war with its central metaphor.
Early on, we learn that a Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI) has only a 61 percent chance of stopping the rogue nuke, prompting Jared Harris’s Secretary of Defense to exclaim, “So it’s a fucking coin toss? This is what $50 billion buys us?” The statement is meant to be shocking.
Yet a later segment, titled “A Bullet Hitting a Bullet,” uses that very phrase to explain why our missile defense is so ineffective. As a metaphor, a bullet hitting another bullet implies a near-zero probability of success. So, which is it: a coin toss or a near-impossible shot? The film’s logic doesn’t add up. Besides, that isn’t how heat-seeking missiles work.
Great films have been built around the looming threat of nuclear attack. Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” is a visionary dark comedy framed as an ominous countdown. Sidney Lumet’s “Fail Safe,” released the same year, remains a spellbinding thriller. And “Thirteen Days” portrayed the Cuban Missile Crisis with hypnotic psychology and riveting realpolitik, showing us just how close the world came to the brink.
Those films are fearless, cautionary works of art. “A House of Dynamite,” by contrast, is so hyperbolic in its attempt to push the audience’s buttons that it feels less like a warning and more like a manipulative exercise. The most dangerous possibility it raises is not nuclear war, but that anyone would fall for its flawed and sensationalist premise.
