“A House of Dynamite”: why Kathryn Bigelow’s film annoys the Pentagon

• No. 1 on Netflix, the film “A House of Dynamite” shows an American administration in danger facing a missile attack.
• Designed by director Kathryn Bigelow with the help of experts, this thriller greatly displeases the Pentagon.
• In an internal memo, its managers denounce “false hypotheses” aimed at entertaining the public.

Warning controversy… explosive! In A House of Dynamiteher new film available on Netflix, director Kathryn Bigelow tells from different points of view the 19 minutes during which high-ranking officers and officials of the American administration are confronted with a missile attack of unknown origin. Unlike the usual Hollywood action films, this thriller delivers a pessimistic look, to say the least – we won’t spoil it for you any further – on the reaction capacity of the world’s leading power.

“I believe we are in an extremely dangerous situation”declared the Oscar-winning author of Minesweepers et Zero Dark Thirty during the presentation of the film at the Venice Film Festival in early September. “It’s very important to start a dialogue about nuclear. And maybe there are policies that can be changed, addressed or at least examined. That would be a huge step.”. A step that not everyone seems ready to take yet, obviously…

In an internal memo dated October 16 obtained by the Bloomberg site, the Pentagon denounces “false assumptions” and ensures that its interceptors “demonstrated a 100% success rate” in testing for over a decade. “The fictional interceptors in the film miss their target and we understand that this is intended to make the drama more gripping for the audience’s entertainment”we can read. “But real-world test results tell a very different story”. Move around, is there nothing to see?

A former journalist specializing in military issues, the film’s screenwriter Noah Oppenheim claims to have spoken with numerous experts to concoct the most credible plot possible. “Unfortunately our missile defense system is very imperfect”he said on MSNBC. “If the Pentagon wants to have a conversation about improving it or what the next step could be to keep all of us safe, that’s exactly the conversation we want to have. But what we show in the film is accurate.”

Coincidentally, the questions raised by Kathryn Bigelow echo Donald Trump’s decision to order his Department of Defense to “start testing” US nuclear weapons, ahead of a meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea, and as Russian President Vladimir Putin challenged him with a test of a nuclear-capable underwater drone.