Venice: A House of Dynamite thrillingly imagines an all-too-plausible doomsday scenario

Whilst the concept of mutually assured destruction derives from the Cold War, various moments from Donald Trump’s first term as US president brought the world back into that mindset, as he raised tension with Eastern Hemisphere powers like Russia, China and North Korea. For US citizens, and cautious world leaders attempting to contain him, his belligerence and braggadocio seemed a potential lightning rod to ignite global armed conflict.

The world’s ideological polarisation and the breakout of war in Ukraine and Gaza has had writers and directors upping the stakes of their own narratives. So, current tastes feel primed for a film like A House of Dynamite, which follows the quick-fire strategic decision-making in a speculative scenario where the US homeland comes under attack from an unattributed long-range missile.

The director is the talented but less-than-prolific Kathryn Bigelow, praised for her skeptical, ambiguous portrayals of the War of Terror in The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. Where those films particularly bothered the left with their unpersuasive aims to be “apolitical” and neutral, A House of Dynamite actually benefits from leaving ideology to the side, creating engagement and suspense by how it traces an event like this through our modern information infrastructure, with various government departments’ leadership abilities stretched until they break.

The narrative design by screenwriter Noah Oppenheim also borrows one of the best ploys from Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, tracking the same timespan (here, 18 minutes after the missile is identified) from three different perspectives, and showing vital character details and reactions in new contexts that often deepen their insight into US politics, as well as creating pathos. It begins with a missile defence centre in Georgia taking note of attack incoming from somewhere in the Pacific, before that information is ported to the White House Situation Room under the dynamic leadership of Rebecca Ferguson’s Capt. Olivia Walker, whose steely femininity evokes Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, and akin to her, feels like an on-screen surrogate for Bigelow.

Then, our understanding deepens seeing the events from the perspective of the military team responsible for nuclear retaliation, led by Tracy Letts’ General Brody and a top NSA analyst played by the fresh-faced Gabriel Basso, a pointed casting as he unwittingly helped amplify the current Vice President J.D. Vance’s public profile, portraying him in Hillbilly Elegy. Then, we get a surprisingly emotive vignette of the actual president’s response (Idris Elba, his performance evoking a more down-to-earth Obama, and even Joe Biden’s affability before his pre-election decline).

Each group of characters processes the terminal events, which none of their diplomatic negotiations, and military defence strategies can alter. The key line A House of Dynamite walks, resulting in its quality, is that we know in the back of our minds the fantasy, and even escapism, of this situation - it’s certainly possible, but not exactly plausible that this could happen tomorrow or the near-future. So, we’re given license to guiltlessly enjoy the film’s genre elements, although they gain depth from Bigelow and Oppenheim’s acute understanding of the US’s political circus.