A House of Dynamite
Idris Elba is US President — yay! Only rather than going Independence Day, or World Has Fallen, or even one of the Top Guns and saving everyone and everything, he has the excruciating decision of what to do when a mysterious nuclear missile is apparently heading towards the USA, to take out Chicago or another major urban location. All the while working through extreme tiredness and irritation with governmental procedures and ‘yes’ men and women. More worryingly, this enemy is disembodied — there is no why, no group to rally again, and as to what the attacker’s plan is?…
Kathryn Bigelow gives us a tense thriller which is very person/character-driven, and which is compelling, intense and engrossing given that its focus is lots of screens, calls and exposition conversations.
We see the reactions, the constant information gathering, the meetings, the putting systems in place following textbook procedures and the slow-gathering horror as those systems fail — and the missile keeps coming. There’s intelligence gathering, disorientation, regrouping, confusion and paranoia as Russia and China deny that it was them, and the US tries to work out what an effective response looks like to everyone apparently not being the problem. Are we heading towards a global war or a mysterious terror campaign? Will it end? How many should or could be sacrificed? Then protocol kicks in and the most important people on a list are removed, forcibly by security services, to a safe bunker, leaving others behind to gather intelligence and await what comes next.
Like Traffic or Sicario, we see events from several perspectives — including the President, who is having a truly horrible day. Cleverly, the footage shows the conversations we overhear from these different points of view. Rather than the US saving the world, as you’d expect in a Clancy-esque novel, it appears that it doesn’t — or certainly we’re left hanging as the President has to decide what to do next. Not to mention wondering if this is the end — will there be more missiles? Or is it a mistake, a flock of birds? The movie ends in shock and tears rather than triumph victory bombast, and yet we still don’t know the real end.
I haven’t watched such an intense movie in a long time, and one which stays with you for a while afterwards. Their anxiety becomes yours (and apologies for those in the ticket queue I held up. Genuinely couldn’t link the right pincode to my card, ‘cos I’d just been watching a movie about imminent global nuclear conflict!) In all the focused action, there’s a fragility, a helplessness as systems and next steps fail, as the target is missed and keeps on coming. The conflict also becomes horribly personal as loved ones of some of the characters are living in Chicago and other targetable urban areas, and they struggle to balance the professional and the personal. It also really makes you think deeply about who you give the power to press the buttons (should they need to). Vote, but vote wisely (if you can) is the takeaway message and think about the ethics, morals and brains, even the strategists you’re putting in the power seats. Are all the leaders we’re seeing on the screen just ‘narcissists?’ In contrast, loved seeing Rebecca Ferguson in action — and being a high-powered working woman in a supportive and loving relationship rather than undermined and everything falling apart as is so much the trope. Even better, men and women working together and being friends and allies in the workplace — huzzah for Malachi Beasley! More ominous though, a cherished toy dinosaur hiding in a shoe made me think of cataclysmic meteor strikes…
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