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Bestowed upon a privileged handful, the designation of Noted Film-maker can serve as both a crown and a burden. On the beneficial side, it can provide a shield: when viewing the works of an distinguished director through this perspective, film scholars may feel pressured to defend even their weakest efforts. (The logic is that a disappointing film by a Renowned Director is still superior to the best work of a jobbing hack.) One downside is that such accolades can confine a creative to a constrained space, pursuing exclusively material suitable for a Noted Film-maker; another is that the disappointment when a project falls flat is even more pronounced. A notable test case has made its way to Netflix in the film by Kathryn Bigelow A House of Dynamite, a not-so-heavy-hitter that – if texts from cinephile pals are any indication – seems destined for only one award this season: that for Most Notable Misfire.

Retracing the Director's Steps

To ascertain the reasons the film has disappointed many, we must retrace its director's steps. Bigelow established her acclaim with a succession of broad, agile genre films: biker flick The Loveless, the epic vampire tale Near Dark, cop thriller Blue Steel, the timeless action film starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze Point Break. Clearer indication of her creative evolution came with the overlooked 1995 film Strange Days, an electrifying future-now thriller, influenced by the Rodney King incident, which also served as a moral story about the risks of abandoning reality to take cover in the simulated environment. (Bigelow proved more attentive to this than her former husband and collaborator James Cameron, now preparing the release of Avatar 3.) Yet following the turn of the millennium, with her reputation growing, Bigelow – like her native country – was forced on the defensive. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty broached 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 extended past of racism.

It's easy to see why a film-maker on this trajectory might be attracted to Dynamite’s script – penned by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who wrote Netflix’s latest show starring Robert De Niro Zero Day – and why the platform would enthusiastically stump for a nuclear-panic thriller after Oppenheimer’s award season success. (One idea for the new film: what if Oppenheimer, but now?)

What Works and What Doesn't

Dynamite is at its strongest early on, depicting in near real-time the 19 minutes in which a missile launched somewhere in the Pacific region by unknown parties is detected by sensors of a US army base in Alaska and reported to the presidential command center, heading for what everyone learns is its target: central Chicago. In this initial part, Bigelow and Oppenheim rapidly increase the drama while engaging in an fascinating time-based suspense: we’re left pondering where this full-length production can possibly proceed once the countdown clock hits zero.

The outcome – and at this point the frustrations emerge – is back to the beginning: the film later moves between the viewpoints of those top leaders (Tracy Letts’ general, defense secretary Jared Harris and president Idris Elba) the opening scene briefly seen or mentioned. Structurally, the film is unable to advance: it’s a extended runtime with a minimal narrative arc, leaving Oppenheim to revisit that first reel again and again, every iteration trowelling on contested bureaucratic steps while edging everybody closer the anticipated detonation. Previous Bigelow films had a strong control on stimulus and response; her best films as a Noted Film-maker, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were definitionally all consequence. But here, the triggering event is also the final play; the drama gets interesting at the precise instant the film concludes. The personas are left wondering: “Is this the end?” We are, too, for distinct motivations.

Stylistic and Conceptual Issues

While the plot cycles in diminishing returns, like a doomy Groundhog Day, we’ve plenty of opportunity to consider the harmful influence platform financing has had on the aesthetic of U.S. films. Even on the cinema display, Dynamite struck the eye as uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s hasty mobile filming recalling 24 or The West Wing or current streaming offerings employing identical backdrops, up to and including Zero Day. If Bigelow the Noted Visual Film-maker fades away, so too does Bigelow the Celebrated Female Auteur: Rebecca Ferguson, outlined in that opening reel as possibly one more of this director’s tough-minded working women, exits prematurely, so once more it’s the responsibility of a cabal of frowning men to try to stop doomsday. The passion Bigelow infused into her grittier initial successes vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s financial shortfall, the director felt she had to restrain her bold choices, but a script this dialogue-heavy required some balancing visual flair.

Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment

The fear A House of Dynamite most effectively inspires, then, isn’t global eradication, but a artist's anxiety of being considered inadequate; tensing up and almost petrifying as it goes along, it’s understandable the film should have been eclipsed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this screenplay presumes is that those holding roles of command would be skilled experts, conscientious to the core and that the greatest danger to Chicago in late 2025 would come from some place other than the White House. Where previous Bigelow films felt like deeply committed examinations on their time, Dynamite – the earliest of this director’s newer films to fall in the space between afterthought, distraction and outright irrelevance – instead spends a pair of lethargic hours struggling aimlessly behind the curve. It’s lacking in drama by design: even before the stray rocket first registers on a radar, the United States Bigelow’s film depicts has been shattered completely.