In October 1964, Sidney Lumet, the furrow-browed director of 12 Angry Men and (later) Dog Day Afternoon, brought his sober-eyed vision for the end of the world to theaters. Barely two years since the real-life Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in the same autumnal season, Fail Safe was intended to be a probing and despairing look at what nuclear armageddon might look like should the systems that dictate the Cold War break. Can there ever really be something like a fail-safe?Unfortunately for Lumet, nine months prior to Fail Safe arriving on screen, another little black-and-white chiller got there first. And unlike Lumet, Stanley Kubrick welcomed mutually assured destruction with a wink and a smirk in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Audiences at the time turned out to prefer to chase their doomsday with a giggle instead of a groan. I’m not sure that impulse has changed much in the 60 years since either film given how ultimately turgid and moribund Kathryn Bigelow’s 21st century update of the paranoia tends to be in 2025.cnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});There is much to admire about A House of Dynamite, to be sure. The film is from one of great political dramatists of the day and features a stellar cast that includes Rebecca Ferguson and Idris Elba at the top of its massive call sheet. The acting is urgent and the atmosphere tense as we examine a day in the (end of all) life from various perspectives across the D.C. ecosystem. During the earliest segments particularly, which are told from the vantage of White House analysts like Capt. Olivia Walker (Ferguson), the movie achieves the breathless verisimilitude that Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim strive for. As an opening title card warns: in the years after the Cold War, there was a consensus by the world’s governments to deescalate and reduce the number of nuclear weapons around the globe. “That era is now over!”Yet so much of A House of Dynamite proves to be a frustrating wait for the new world to begin. It’s a long fuse that is meticulously laid by a talented writer and master director… and then never lit.The circuitous track of that fuse rounds its way, roughly, around three larger narrative strands. The first is the frontline of nuclear deterrence and analysis, chiefly represented by Ferguson’s aforementioned Olivia, who is senior officer in the White House Situation Room, as well as a handful of other proverbial watchers on the wall like Maj. Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), a commander in charge of the military’s ground-based interceptor missiles at an undisclosed location in the midwest. We spend an obligatory few moments in understanding each protagonist’s daily life—Olivia is happily married, though out the door for work before her daughter is really up, or for that matter dawn has begun; Daniel is swallowing his anger after a breakup; and there’s even a FEMA official (Moses Ingram) going through a divorce.Soon though the new reality takes shape and a missile from a nuclear submarine of an unknown origin is flying like a bat out of hell into orbit. The warhead seems to be on a path aimed directly toward one of the continental United States’ major cities. From her situation room, Liv must manage an AWOL POTUS who is giving exacerbated orders over choppy Zoom calls. She’s also sneaking a warning to her husband to get in a car with their daughter and drive west while avoiding major population centers. The movie reaches a crescendo of dread as everyone in the Situation Room watches the minutes before impact tick down to zero. It’s now decision time for the commander-in-chief on how to respond…And then the movie starts again from a slightly higher ranking position, this time a day in the life of hawkish STRATCOM Gen. Anthony Brody (Tracy Letts), as well as the NSA’s North Korea expert Ana Park (Greta Lee), and expectant father and deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso). Quickly the structure comes into focus, as disparate perspectives offer a growing (but still opaque) understanding of what’s happening. We see the same events occur multiple times from a more militaristic perch next; and then of course will come a third run-through as finally a fairly feckless POTUS (Idris Elba) and his completely shellshocked Secretary of Defense (Jared Harris) walk us into zero seconds from midnight.Conceptually A House of Dynamite would appear to have the structure of 21st century realpolitik Rashomon parable: the same story told from such divergent and conflicting perspectives that it suggests a greater truth that remains elusive for one and all. But in practice, the film better resembles the same earnest and worthwhile PSA ad campaign running slight variations of the same TV spot back-to-back. After the first 45 or so white-knuckle minutes, you get the point. So by the time we’re completing our third lap round the apocalypse, you’re ready to push the big red button yourself.This appears to be largely a fatal misjudgment in Oppenheim’s screenplay. The writer of Jackie and Zero Day proves his real insider beltway bonafides on this one, insofar as he mistakes a fascination with process to be a winning political narrative. There is merit to almost every one of the potential protagonists in Dynamite, but collectively the sum of the ensemble is lesser than its parts.Ferguson remains compulsively watchable in any scenario she’s in, and makes a strong anchor in the first segment, and Elba’s POTUS is an interesting composite of various recent presidents. He obviously suggests Obama’s background as well as erudite nature (he is supposed to be well-read), but he also proves as distracted as more recent, yet older, chief commanders, especially in the way Trump is reportedly easily swayed by whoever talks to him last. Here is a man who likes sitting behind the resolute desk but is absolutely confounded by making any strong decision there.The final choice this president must make—how to respond to the likely annihilation of a major American city—will chart the course of the fate of the world, including whether there even is a tomorrow. But with its fitful starts and stops, the movie ends up being even more of a fence-sitter than the politician it so harshly judges. And it gives us enough time to dwell on the heavy-handedness of of economical dialogue that has to lay the groundwork for why the Secretary of DoD is out to lunch after he finds out where the missile is headed.In an attempt to get you to hold your breath, the movie becomes airless, all while offering no greater clarity about why this is happening beyond the obvious “nuclear weapons are bad” message we got at the jump. At one point in the film, when considering the nuclear powered suspects who could have launched the missile, Lee’s Dr. Park suggests that if you’re losing the game, sometimes you might think it best to flip the board over. This film, however, opts to never play the game through to its end. It’s a bold strategy since nobody can win, not even the audience.A House of Dynamite premiered on Sept. 28 at the New York Film Festival and plays on Netflix on Oct. 24.The post A House of Dynamite Review: Kathryn Bigelow Lights a Fuse That Fails to Go Off appeared first on Den of Geek.