\t\t\tmovie review\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tA HOUSE OF DYNAMITE\t\t<\/p>\n
Running time: 112 minutes. Rated R (language). On Netflix Oct. 24.<\/p>\n
Two ominous notes of music repeat at the beginning of \u201cA House of Dynamite,\u201d\u00a0sounding like the score from \u201cJaws.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only this time the killer shark is a nuke. And it\u2019s only 19 minutes away from an unsuspecting United States.<\/p>\n
The \u201cyou\u2019re all going to die!\u201d alarm from \u201cHurt Locker\u201d and \u201cZero Dark Thirty\u201d director Kathryn Bigelow is the king of all downers.<\/p>\n
Its deflating take is that America is woefully unprepared for a potential nuclear war at a precarious time in the world, and we\u2019re sitting ducks less than a half-hour from imminent, unprovoked annihilation.<\/p>\n
\u201cDynamite\u201d is an overcooked casserole of lofty \u201cifs\u201d.<\/p>\n
\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJohnny Oleksinski<\/p>\n
What happens if essential equipment malfunctions? What if, at our most perilous crossroads, our nation\u2019s leaders mute their strategic Zoom calls to instead phone their wives and kids? What if our top analysts have the day off? What if nobody has a clue what they\u2019re doing?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all plausible.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Ferguson\u2019s Olivia has the worst 20 minutes of her life in \u201cA House of Dynamite.\u201d AP<\/p>\n
However, when you give a realistic scenario the aesthetic of a 20-year-old network TV show and a script that\u2019s just \u201cArmageddon\u201d in glasses, its veneer of importance falls off.<\/p>\n
The video-gamey dialogue often had me giggling, with its hackneyed attempts to quickly establish 20 characters we\u2019ll otherwise learn nothing about.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says the prenup is ironclad!\u201d yells frantic Cathy from FEMA (Moses Ingram) on the phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you see the ballgame last night?\u201d asks Tracy Letts\u2019 Strategic Command General Brady as though he\u2019s kicking off an improv scene at Upright Citizens Brigade.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine any president \u2014 fictional or otherwise \u2014 uttering \u201cI listened to this podcast \u2026\u201d just two minutes before the complete eradication of a major American city.<\/p>\n
Lax details like that strain credulity of a movie that fancies itself a giant blinking warning sign of what\u2019s to come. Sure I felt existential dread from start to finish. Bigelow succeeds there. I also felt cringe. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The film unfolds in three parts from different perspectives \u2014 including Anthony Ramos\u2019 major trying to intercept a nuclear missile. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cDynamite\u201d unfolds in three parts, each an alternate perspective on the same\u00a0breathless\u00a0span of time\u00a0\u2014 from the detection of a missile\u00a0launched over the Pacific\u00a0to it reaching its eventual destination.<\/p>\n
Part 1 is set in an Alaska interceptor station and the White House Situation Room. Rebecca Ferguson is the MVP of the film as Captain Olivia Walker, a mom who tries hard to hold back tears\u00a0while\u00a0remaining\u00a0in charge.<\/p>\n
Part 2 finds us in an underground Strategic Command Center in Nebraska. As its general, dry Letts is as easily eviscerating as ever. Scenes also take place in a field where a North Korea expert (Greta Lee) is watching the Battle of Gettysburg being reenacted. Rather on the nose.<\/p>\n
Idris Elba plays the president of the United States. AP<\/p>\n
And Part 3 mostly follows\u00a0an amiable, if foul-mouthed\u00a0president of the United States, played by Idris Elba. There are shadows of George W. Bush on Sept. 11 when Elba\u2019s commander-in-chief is whisked away from a youth basketball league and onto a helicopter to make life-and-death choices midair.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Jared Harris\u2019 Secretary of Defense sits in the Pentagon, knowing next to nothing about defense.<\/p>\n
After the first section, Bigelow\u2019s tightrope turns to Silly String. The core trajectory has been firmly established and nothing is going to change it. It\u2019s not that kind of movie.<\/p>\n
\u201cDynamite\u201d actually \u2014 sometimes cheesily \u2014 is a lot like 1990s and aughts disaster flicks, except there is not much suspense as to whether or not the nuclear bomb will land, even though Bigelow casually tries to create some. \u201cThey don\u2019t always go off,\u201d a character says. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The mood is too dire and the message too clear for the crisis to be averted.<\/p>\n
\u201cA House of Dynamite\u201d asks hard questions, but too often in a cheesy way. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cDynamite\u201d is more about what happens if the initial strike isn\u2019t prevented right away. Do we retaliate against or disarm North Korea, Russia and China even if we\u2019re not sure who did it? Will acting fast save the US or lead to its total destruction?<\/p>\n
Relevant and scary questions, all.<\/p>\n
What a shame then how simply they\u2019re undone by\u00a0the many\u00a0hard-to-believe characters saying mockable things. You\u2019ll howl when Jason Clarke\u2019s Situation Room admiral chirps, \u201cGive me a shout if the world is going to end!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"movie review A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE Running time: 112 minutes. Rated R (language). On Netflix Oct. 24. Two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[1508,88,954,81549,47954,206,81550],"class_list":{"0":"post-245534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-actors","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-films","11":"tag-idris-elba","12":"tag-movie-reviews","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-rebecca-ferguson"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}