Bestowed upon a privileged handful, the title of Noted Film-maker can serve as both a crown and a burden. On the favorable side, it can act as a safeguard: when viewing the works of an celebrated director through this perspective, film scholars may feel pressured to make excuses for even their poorest efforts. (The rationale 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 restrict a creative to a tight creative box, seeking out material befitting a Esteemed Director; another is that the disappointment when a project falls flat is even more pronounced. A high-profile test case has just reached Netflix in the latest from 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 Biggest Letdown.
Examining Bigelow's Career Path
To ascertain the reasons the film has disappointed many, we must look back at Bigelow's career. Bigelow earned her laurels with a series of expansive, limber genre pics: motorcycle drama The Loveless, the sprawling undead story Near Dark, cop thriller Blue Steel, the timeless Keanu/Swayze actioner Point Break. A sharper insight of her artistic path came with 1995’s underheralded Strange Days, an gripping sci-fi suspense story, shaped by the events surrounding Rodney King, which also served as a warning tale about the dangers of abandoning reality to seek shelter in the virtual realm. (Bigelow proved more aware of this than her screenwriter/ex-husband James Cameron, now preparing the release of Avatar 3.) Yet post-2001, with her reputation growing, Bigelow – like her the United States – was pushed into a reactive stance. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty tackled America’s recent military engagements in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the summer of Charlottesville, entered into a contentious dialogue with the country’s long history of racism.
One can appreciate why a artist following this path might be interested in Dynamite’s script – written by Noah Oppenheim, the previous news executive who scripted Netflix’s latest show starring Robert De Niro Zero Day – and why the streamer would strongly support a atomic anxiety film after Oppenheimer’s award season success. (One pitch for the new film: what if Oppenheimer, but now?)
What Works and What Doesn't
Dynamite is at its most effective early on, describing in something like real time the 19 minutes in which a rocket sent somewhere in the Pacific by unidentified actors is picked up on screens of a United States outpost in Alaska and flagged to the presidential command center, en route towards what everyone learns is its objective: the heart of Chicago. In this opening segment, Bigelow and Oppenheim rapidly increase the drama while undertaking an compelling countdown strategy: we’re left pondering where this full-length production can possibly head once the countdown clock hits zero.
The response – and at this point the frustrations emerge – is back to the beginning: the film then shifts between the angles of those senior officials (Tracy Letts’ military officer, defense secretary Jared Harris and commander-in-chief Idris Elba) the prologue only partially revealed. From a narrative standpoint, the film is unable to advance: it’s a lengthy film with less than twenty minutes of story, leaving Oppenheim to rehash the opening section repeatedly, each pass layering on moot procedural points while inching everyone nearer the anticipated detonation. Prior Bigelow films had a strong control on cause-and-effect; her finest achievements as a Acclaimed Auteur, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were definitionally all consequence. But here, the catalytic moment is also the final play; the narrative captivates at the very second the film ends. The characters are left wondering: “Is that it?” We are, too, for different reasons.
Stylistic and Conceptual Issues
While the plot spins in ever decreasing circles, like a bleak repetitive cycle, we’ve ample time to reflect on the negative impact streaming budgets has had on the look of U.S. films. Even on the big screen, Dynamite appeared as dully conventional, Barry Ackroyd’s rushed shaky camerawork evoking 24 or The West Wing or current streaming offerings employing identical backdrops, including even Zero Day. If Bigelow the Acclaimed Visual Artist disappears, so too does Bigelow the Celebrated Female Auteur: Rebecca Ferguson, outlined in that opening reel as potentially another of this director’s strong female professionals, clocks off early, so yet again it’s up to a group of serious male figures to try to avert global catastrophe. The energy Bigelow infused into her grittier initial successes vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s commercial underperformance, the artist felt she had to restrain her bold choices, but a script this verbose required some offsetting dramatic intensity.
Central Dread and Concluding Thoughts
The dread A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t nuclear annihilation, but a artist's anxiety of being thought unworthy; becoming rigid and almost petrifying as it unfolds, it’s hardly surprising the film should have been eclipsed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this story takes for granted is that those in charge of critical decisions would be qualified professionals, conscientious to the core and that the greatest danger to Chicago in the latter part of 2025 would come from a location outside of the White House. Where previous Bigelow films felt like fiercely engaged reflections on their era, Dynamite – the earliest of this director’s latest projects to fall in a gray area of oversight, diversion and total insignificance – instead spends two listless hours clawing futilely behind the curve. It’s devoid of suspense intentionally: even before the rogue missile first appears on sensors, the nation Bigelow’s film describes has been destroyed utterly.
