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Bestowed upon an elite few, the title 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 celebrated director through this lens, auteurist critics may feel obliged to make excuses for even their poorest efforts. (The logic is that a lackluster film by a Prestigious Auteur is still more valuable than the best work of a routine filmmaker.) One disadvantage is that such titles can restrict a creative to a very narrow courtyard, seeking out material worthy of a Noted Film-maker; another is that the disappointment when a project fails to ignite is significantly amplified. A prominent example has made its way to Netflix in the Kathryn Bigelow-directed A House of Dynamite, a not-so-heavy-hitter that – if messages from film buff friends are any measure – seems destined for only one honor this season: that for Biggest Letdown.

Looking Back at the Filmmaker's Journey

To ascertain the reasons the film has underwhelmed so, we must retrace its director's steps. Bigelow built her reputation with a run of versatile and dynamic movies: motorcycle drama The Loveless, the sprawling undead story Near Dark, cop thriller Blue Steel, the enduring action film starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze Point Break. A more definite sign of her direction of travel came with the overlooked 1995 film Strange Days, an electrifying sci-fi suspense story, shaped by the Rodney King incident, which also served as a cautionary fable about the perils of abandoning reality to find refuge in the simulated environment. (Bigelow proved more aware of 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 native country – was pushed into a reactive stance. The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty tackled America’s contemporary conflicts in the Middle East; Detroit, released in the time of national tension, entered into a contentious dialogue with the country’s long history of racism.

One can appreciate why a director with this background might be attracted to Dynamite’s script – written by Noah Oppenheim, the former NBC News chief who penned Netflix’s recent, De Niro-led series Zero Day – and why the service would vigorously back a atomic anxiety film after Oppenheimer’s Academy Awards dominance. (One concept for the new film: a contemporary version of Oppenheimer?)

What Works and What Doesn't

Dynamite is at its most effective early on, describing in something like real time the short interval in which a projectile fired somewhere in the Pacific by unidentified actors is detected by sensors of a United States outpost in Alaska and reported to the executive briefing area, heading for what everyone learns is its target: the heart of Chicago. In this first section, Bigelow and Oppenheim rapidly increase the drama while undertaking an fascinating time-based suspense: we’re left pondering where this two-hour film can possibly head once the countdown clock reaches zero.

The response – and at this point the frustrations emerge – is a return to the start: the film subsequently shuffles between the perspectives of those higher-ups (Tracy Letts’ military officer, secretary of defence Jared Harris and commander-in-chief Idris Elba) the prologue briefly seen or mentioned. Structurally, the film can’t develop: it’s a two-hour movie with less than twenty minutes of story, leaving Oppenheim to revisit that first reel repeatedly, each pass trowelling on contested bureaucratic steps while moving all parties toward the dreaded big bang. Earlier Bigelow films had a strong control on action and consequence; her finest achievements as a Acclaimed Auteur, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty, were inherently about outcomes. But here, the catalytic moment is also the endgame; the drama gets interesting at the very second the film concludes. The characters are left wondering: “Is this all?” We are, too, for separate causes.

Stylistic and Conceptual Issues

While the scenario spins in ever decreasing circles, like a pessimistic time loop, we’ve sufficient moments to reflect on the deleterious effect streaming budgets has had on the visual style of Hollywood productions. Even on the large screen, Dynamite appeared as uninspired and typical, Barry Ackroyd’s hasty mobile filming recalling 24 or The West Wing or modern platform releases employing identical backdrops, extending to Zero Day. If Bigelow the Noted Visual Film-maker vanishes, so too does Bigelow the Renowned Feminist Director: Rebecca Ferguson, outlined in that initial segment as possibly one more of this director’s strong female professionals, exits prematurely, so once more it’s up to a collection of stern males to try to prevent the world’s end. The energy Bigelow infused into her more genre-oriented early hits vanishes with her; maybe after Detroit’s box office disappointment, the director felt she had to curb her bold choices, but a script this dialogue-heavy required some offsetting dramatic intensity.

Underlying Anxiety and Overall Assessment

The anxiety A House of Dynamite most strongly conjures, then, isn’t nuclear annihilation, but a filmmaker's fear of being considered inadequate; tensing up and almost petrifying as it goes along, it’s understandable the film should have been surpassed by contemporary, reframing developments. What this screenplay assumes is that those occupying positions of operational authority would be skilled experts, deeply responsible and that the biggest threat to Chicago in late 2025 would come from some place other than the White House. Where prior Bigelow films felt like fiercely engaged reflections on their moment, Dynamite – the first of this director’s newer films to fall somewhere between afterthought, distraction and outright irrelevance – instead spends a dull two-hour runtime struggling aimlessly outdated. It’s lacking in drama by design: even before the rogue missile first is detected, the America Bigelow’s film describes has been destroyed utterly.