Kathryn Bigelow is a rarity among American directors, a woman who makes compelling movies with a military theme. I was enormously impressed by “The Hurt Locker” (2008) and “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012). Here, she works with scriptwriter Noah Oppenheim and sound designer Paul NJ Ottosson to present to us a gripping insight into a nightmare scenario: an intercontinental ballistic missile has been launched at the United States; nobody knows who is behind this or why they have launched such a surprise attack; but the American administration has just 19 minutes to decide how to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film has a novel narrative structure: a triptych in which the same set-up, with much of the same dialogue and characters, is presented from three points of view, each in a different principal location with a different main character. So, we are in the White House Operations Room with Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson); then in the office of the Secretary of State for Defense (Jared Harris); and finally, in a helicopter with the US President (Idris Elba).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“A House Of Dynamite” has been criticised for its repetitive structure, but the approach serves to emphasise the complexity of the issues and the decision-making process. Many are also unhappy with the sudden and unresolved ending, but this is not a story with a conclusion but a question to be considered: would we really use strategic nuclear weapons?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film was funded by Netflix, so most viewers will see it on television and struggle with catching all the dialogue. I managed to view it on the big screen and fortuitously it was a version with sub-titles (even then, technical terms and acronyms abound). So the work is only a partial success, but a worthy and effective attempt to remind us that the Cold War may be over but the nuclear threat remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kathryn Bigelow is a rarity among American directors, a woman who makes compelling movies with a military theme. I was enormously impressed by “The Hurt Locker” (2008) and “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012). Here, she works with scriptwriter Noah Oppenheim and sound designer Paul NJ Ottosson to present to us a gripping insight into a nightmare […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30075,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30074\/revisions\/30075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}