Review: 'A House of Dynamite' emulates the great nuclear-war thrillers of the '60s, but pulls its punches in the end

The geopolitical thriller “A House of Dynamite” tries to tackle a big topic — the ever-present threat of nuclear war — within a series of small spaces: Military control rooms, the White House situation room, and ultimately Marine One, where the president is faced with the awesome decision whether or not to order a missile strike.

Through these tense sessions, one can see how director Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty”) and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (“Jackie”) were trying to evoke classic Cold War nuclear movies, like “Fail-Safe” or “Dr. Strangelove.” One can also see how delivering an ambiguous ending, or making one mistake in the movie’s execution, can undercut those efforts.

The story plays out in three acts, each depicting the same span of time — during which an intercontinental ballistic missile is launched, from where our surveillance satellites cannot tell, and is heading toward the American Midwest. The people in charge of preventing such things, and the people who must respond to them, have about 35 minutes to figure out what to do next.

Act 1 is partly set in a military base in Alaska, where a team of soldiers sit behind screens trying to operate the levers of the U.S. missile defense system, as Maj. Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) must give the order to launch interceptor missiles to take out the rogue nuke. Gonzalez’ team is in contact with the White House situation room, where Capt. Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) gives the orders — because her boss, Adm. Mark Miller (Jason Clarke), has been ordered to a bunker, in case the worst happens.

Act 2 gets a little closer to the center of the decision web, in a control room of Central Command, or CentCom, where Gen. Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts) has to relay information to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the cabinet and ultimately to the president — who, for this section, is just a blank square on a Zoom call. Brady is trying to relay what the military knows about the missile’s origin, while in another room, Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso), a nervous deputy national security adviser, tries to wrangle enough foreign intelligence to determine whether our chief adversaries, Russia or China, launched the missile.

Act 3 takes us to the heart of the decision, putting us close to the one man who must make the decision whether to retaliate — the President.

Up to now, the audience has been able to play out all the scenarios, just as the military and civilian strategists have been doing. We also get to appreciate a strong supporting cast, which includes Jared Harris as a bewildered defense secretary, Moses Ingram as a FEMA official who’s surprised to learn she’s been moved to that top-secret bunker, and Greta Lee as a security analyst being called on her vacation — trying to help stop armageddon while keeping her son from running off at a Gettysburg re-enactment. After that moment, there are two more familiar actors who deliver quick, soulful performances: Kaitlyn Dever and Renée Elise Goldsberry.

However, the moment we see the president is when the military authenticity Bigelow has been so carefully building starts to fall apart, because of a single casting choice. The President is never identified by name or political party, but by casting Idris Elba to play him, Bigelow irrevocably alters the movie’s tone and message.

Casting Elba makes this president someone who’s cool under fire, thoughtful in his decision-making, and understanding the weight of the choice he must make. In other words, a president unlike any we’ve had in about a year — and, one could argue, since Jan. 20, 2017. 

Of course, any hope the audience might have of the characters of “A House of Dynamite” surviving this scenario depends on having an Elba-like president — not one modeled after the current occupant of the White House. It’s the difference between a sharp-minded Henry Fonda in “Fail-Safe” or a buffoonish Peter Sellers in “Dr. Strangelove.” “A House of Dynamite” presents the threat of nuclear war as we would hope it would be handled, but the true horror is how it makes us think about how poorly it would play out in this reality.

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‘A House of Dynamite’

★★★

Opens Friday, October 10, in theaters; then streaming on Netflix starting October 24. Rated R for language. Running time: 112 minutes.