A House of Dynamite

Review: The newest political thriller from director Kathryn Bigelow (‘The Hurt Locker,’ ‘Zero Dark Thirty’), this film follows various fictional figures in the US government as they promptly deal with the looming threat of a nuclear attack. The film is segmented into three parts that play out simultaneously focusing on different portions of the US response team. The first portion follows the White House Situation Room, with Rebecca Ferguson taking the forefront. The second part follows a Deputy National Security Advisor, played by Gabriel Basso. And the third features the real decision maker, the US President, played by Idris Elba. Other names that appear in the ensemble include Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, & Brian Tee, who all slide into place really well. There’s also a really random Angel Reese cameo. I don’t want to spoil any of the film, so I’ll just say it’s fast paced and you can’t let your guard down for a second, because something is always happening on screen. This all results in a really solid watch with all 112 minutes of the runtime being meaningful. The ending keeps things a little ambiguous, which has pros and cons. The pro is that it doesn’t make a real life political statement & lets your imagination continue to work while the story ends. The con is that it did feel ever so slightly anticlimactic after a lot of build up.

High: The film was really well edited together. While I didn’t love the way the three stories played out, they were cut together really well, putting emphasis on some quotes we would here from a different POV in each segment. Shoutout to the editor, Kirk Baxter.

Low: There were a few moments where the choice of three segments made the film feel a little disjointed, but by the end of the film I actually think the idea was executed quite well. The middle portion was the least interesting to me, but there were still some strengths, like Basso’s performance.

Rating: 7/10