USA 2025
Opening October 9, 2025
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Writing credits: Noah Oppenheim
Principal actors: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee
A nuclear missile is headed from the west towards the USA, possibly to crash in Chicago in about nineteen minutes. Source of the missile is unknown. Did it take off from the sea, e.g., the Pacific Ocean, or from land: Russia, China, or North Korea? Keeping track of the situation are Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) and Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos). Rockets are sent into the air to destroy the missile, but they fail. They communicate in the Oval Office in Washington D.C. with Secretary of Defense Reid Baker (Jared Harris) and Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso). They inform POTUS, the President of the United States (Idris Elba), who happens to be—naturally—playing golf and talking on the phone to his wife who is on a safari in Kenia. What to do in this short time which is slowly running down to eight minutes? There is communication with Russia. The military is prominent and organizes evacuations in danger zones. Communications become stressed, saying, “This reminds me of college” and “We have built a house full of dynamite and are still living there.”
These are tense nineteen minutes on screen for 112 minutes. What perhaps seems to be repetition is actually viewing the situation through positions held by Walker, Gonzalez, Graves, Baerington, and Baker. Some were actually enjoying a visit to an exhibit about the Battle of Gettysburg 1863, where “50,000 died in three days,” but then reality takes hold. Many institutions are ready to take charge: Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), Defense Readiness Condition 1 (DEFCON 1), United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), and Strategic Communication Center (STRATCOM).
A House of Dynamite appears to me to be a “man” film, although it was directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow and features an excellent actress Rebecca Ferguson, who takes charge, while wearing a beautiful blue suit. There is action, confusion, stress, negative contact, and no plan, “beating a bullet with a bullet,” all supported by excellent music by Volker Bertelmann which my colleague says “pulses like a migraine, building to crescendos that leave you gasping.” Filmed in New Jersey, USA, it premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival and will be released on Netflix starting October 24. (Becky T.)