Captivating thriller on Netflix: Director ensures excitement with new film

It has been far too long eight years since the great American director Kathryn Bigelow (73, “The Hurt Locker”) last presented a new film. With “A House of Dynamite,” which starts on Netflix on October 24th, Bigelow is once again reflecting on one of her greatest strengths – while the streaming service Netflix is ​​currently heading towards the one billion viewer mark. The nuclear thriller offers breathless suspense until the last second. The star-studded ensemble cast of “A House of Dynamite” is led by Idris Elba (53) as the unnamed, still somewhat inexperienced US President and Rebecca Ferguson (41) as an officer in the White House.

This is what “A House of Dynamite” is about

At Fort Greely in Alaska, Major Daniel Gonzalez (33, Anthony Ramos) and his team notice the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile in East Asia. Initially it is assumed that it is just a harmless test, for example from North Korea. Captain Olivia Walker (Ferguson) and her superior Admiral Mark Miller (56, Jason Clarke) react routinely and calmly in the situation center of the White House, the so-called Situation Room.

But when the missile, which was probably equipped with a nuclear warhead, reached ever greater heights and headed for the Midwest of the USA, alarm bells started ringing. It becomes clear that both the destruction of a major US city and a nuclear war are within the realm of possibility.

A large number of competent US military and government employees such as Defense Secretary Reid Baker (64, “Chernobyl” star Jared Harris), Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (30, Gabriel Basso) or the experienced General Anthony Brady (60. Tracy Letts) are trying to react to the shocking situation at their places of work To repel missile attacks, collect information about the enemy and possibly initiate a nuclear counterstrike. A breathless race against time begins until the missile reaches its target and millions of people could be wiped out in one fell swoop.

Breathless tension until the last second

The protagonists in “A House of Dynamite” only have 18 minutes until the nuclear missile hits. Director Bigelow repeats the period in which despair increases from minute to minute three times in her elegantly constructed thriller. From various perspectives such as the real Fort Greely military base in Alaska, the White House or military command centers, the suspenseful story is told almost in real time, with situations and haunting sentences often repeated from a different perspective in the second and third run, which paradoxically only serves to increase the tension further.

For Kathryn Bigelow, “A House of Dynamite” is a rather unusual film. She is a master at staging action and war scenes and is generally a filmmaker of kinetics and movement. And her new nuclear thriller is also convincing across the board and offers almost unbearable, apocalyptic tension at times, even though most of the characters only spend time in command centers where desks, telephones and screens predominate, where they talk to each other, operate computer programs and evaluate data.

Does “A House of Dynamite” create new awareness of the nuclear threat?

This is also due to the high level of realism in “A House of Dynamite”. The various locations in the Netflix film, such as the White House, the interior of the armored presidential limousine “The Beast” or the cockpit of a B-2 strategic bomber, appear as if Bigelow and her team had filmed in real locations.

This realism is supported by the script by former political journalist Noah Oppenheim (47), who clearly has excellent knowledge of US politics and the typical characters that populate it. “A House of Dynamite” is never light fare, as the film raises frightening questions about the possible, almost total extinction of humanity or at least some countries in the event of a nuclear war. After the end of the Cold War, this apocalyptic scenario seemed increasingly unlikely. Bigelow’s film should now bring it back to the consciousness of its viewers.