A House of Dynamite

Opening in theaters for a limited run before hitting Netflix in two weeks, director Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite is an intriguing film exercise of replaying the same 20-30 minutes after a nuclear missile is launched on the United States from enemies unknown. Focusing on a large ensemble of actors, perspective shifts and the timeline resets to show us the same events from other characters' point of view.

We start with a monitoring base in Alaska where soldiers first monitor the launch of an ICBM and the White House monitoring the situation (led by Rebecca Ferguson) and bringing other characters up to speed, some of who will make appearances when the clock resets and we see events unfold from other perspectives. The second time around we focus on a different military base, a North Korean expert (Greta Lee) calling in from a Civil War reenactment, and more of the Deputy National Security Advisor (Gabriel Basso) in over his head offering intelligence and advice.

The third time around we get the President of the United States (Idris Elba), making an appearance at a WNBA event when news of the launch occurs, struggling with retaliation options as the missile gets ever closer. We also get the Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris) attempting in vain to get his estranged daughter (Kaitlyn Dever) out of the expected strike zone.

Bigelow delivers a tense thriller contained by the systems of beaurcracy and the chain of command. These people have trained for this situation but still struggle with the absurdity of it coming to pass. The first half of the film is quite engaging, but by the third time around the ebbing tension of the situation (and the realization that we are not going to get a resolution on-screen) does start to hamper the film. That said, it's still an incredibly interesting piece of filmmaking and worth a look.

• Title: A House of Dynamite
• IMDb: link