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Bestowed upon a select group, the designation of Noted Film-maker can serve as an honor and a weight. On the positive side, it can provide a shield: when viewing the works of an ennobled director through this perspective, film scholars may feel obliged to defend even their weakest efforts. (The logic is that a disappointing film by a Prestigious Auteur is still better than the best work of a routine filmmaker.) One downside is that such accolades can limit a creative to a very narrow courtyard, seeking out material befitting a Acclaimed Auteur; another is that the dismay when a project fails to ignite is even more pronounced. A prominent test case has made its way to Netflix in the Kathryn Bigelow-directed A House of Dynamite, a not-so-heavy-hitter that – if feedback from movie enthusiasts are any measure – seems nailed on for only one recognition this season: that for Biggest Letdown.

Looking Back at the Filmmaker's Journey

To determine why the film has disappointed many, we must retrace its director's steps. Bigelow earned her laurels with a succession of versatile and dynamic movies: biker flick The Loveless, the epic vampire tale Near Dark, police drama Blue Steel, the classic 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 sci-fi suspense story, shaped by the events surrounding Rodney King, which also doubled as a moral story about the perils of rejecting actuality to seek shelter in the virtual realm. (Bigelow proved more alert to this than her screenwriter/ex-husband James Cameron, currently prepping the release of Avatar 3.) Yet after the events of 2001, with her standing increasing, Bigelow – like her the United States – was pushed into a reactive stance. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty addressed America’s then-recent misadventures 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.

One can appreciate why a director with this background might be interested in Dynamite’s script – written by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who wrote Netflix’s latest show starring Robert De Niro Zero Day – and why the streamer would vigorously back a atomic anxiety film after Oppenheimer’s Academy Awards dominance. (One idea for the new film: imagine Oppenheimer in the present day?)

The Film's Strengths and Weaknesses

Dynamite is at its most compelling early on, depicting in near real-time the 19 minutes in which a projectile fired somewhere in the Pacific by unidentified actors is detected by sensors of a US army base in Alaska and reported to the executive briefing area, heading for what everyone learns is its target: downtown Chicago. In this initial part, Bigelow and Oppenheim rapidly increase the drama while engaging in an compelling countdown strategy: we’re made to question where this full-length production can possibly go once the countdown clock reaches zero.

The outcome – and this is where the letdowns start – is a revisit of the opening: the film later moves between the angles of those senior officials (Tracy Letts’ general, defense secretary Jared Harris and commander-in-chief Idris Elba) the opening scene briefly seen or mentioned. In terms of construction, the film fails to progress: 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 contested bureaucratic steps while edging everybody closer 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 definitionally all consequence. But here, the inciting incident is also the concluding action; the narrative captivates at the very second the film concludes. The figures are left wondering: “Is this all?” We are, too, for separate causes.

Visual and Thematic Shortcomings

While the scenario spins in ever decreasing circles, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve plenty of opportunity to consider the negative impact platform financing has had on the visual style of U.S. films. Even on the large screen, Dynamite appeared as uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s hasty mobile filming reminiscent of 24 or The West Wing or modern platform releases reusing familiar locations, extending to Zero Day. If Bigelow the Noted Visual Film-maker disappears, so too does Bigelow the Celebrated Female Auteur: Rebecca Ferguson, sketched in that beginning part as perhaps an additional of this director’s tough-minded working women, clocks off early, so again it’s the responsibility of a collection of stern males to try to stop doomsday. The passion Bigelow infused into her pulpier breakthrough films is lost in this project; maybe after Detroit’s financial shortfall, the director felt she had to rein in her bold choices, but a script this talky required some balancing visual flair.

Central Dread and Concluding Thoughts

The fear A House of Dynamite most potently evokes, then, isn’t atomic destruction, but a filmmaker's fear of being considered inadequate; tensing up and practically fossilising as it goes along, it’s understandable the film should have been overtaken by recent, recontextualising events. What this story takes for granted is that those occupying positions of operational authority would be trained specialists, deeply responsible and that the largest risk to Chicago in late 2025 would come from a location outside of the White House. Where earlier Bigelow films felt like deeply committed examinations on their moment, Dynamite – the earliest of this director’s newer films to fall in the space between neglect, diversion and complete unimportance – instead spends a dull two-hour runtime struggling aimlessly out of touch. It’s not tense for a reason: even before the unauthorized projectile first registers on a radar, the America Bigelow’s film portrays has been destroyed utterly.