Dallas Fisher

Kathryn Bigelow is the master of political thrillers and it’s a shame it took almost a decade and a half to get another good one out of her.

A House of Dynamite pits the president, journalists and everyone in between against a rogue nuke on its way to the United States, and that’s what makes this the scariest movie of the year. Not only is it too realistic for our own good, it’s laid out in a way that you can’t dare look away. Bigelow takes what could be considered boring, phone calls and Zoom meetings, and turns them into the most interesting spectacles of the year. This movie is absolutely the most engaging, edge of your seat thriller you will see for a long time.

This plays out more like a three part mini-series than it does a movie, and that’s mostly for its benefit. Each segment is equally as gripping as the last even as it shows the same beats play out, just from a more specified angle. Choices are made that order you to pay attention to it beyond the film. Even at two hours with a repetitive nature, it moves quicker than most. It’s strategic in showing, or not showing, dilemmas that countdown towards a destructive ending.

The acting from everyone involved is nuclear and decapitating, with the reality of these situations lifted to unbelievable heights. Some of my favorite performances of the year fill this movie, but they will never be spoken about because of their short lived status. Every performance builds tension with a taste in that air that can only be described as palpable. Rebecca Ferguson is a force, Jared Harris and Tracy Letts are demanding, and Anthony Ramos is finally likeable.

Saying all these positives leads me to the most unfortunate aspect of it, the “ending”. Make sure you don’t look at your watch to know when it’s coming, because honestly it’s still nice to know what is coming, without knowing exactly when. It’s almost like the writer (Noah Oppenheim) wanted this to be a cliffhanger for a second season of a show we are never going to get. Instead, we get something that isn’t satisfying, nor complete. If the final few moments matched the rest of the film, we would be talking about one of the movies of the year.

Brace yourself, catch your breath, and make sure you have the knees when this comes on your radar.

8/10