A Home of Dynamite
Studio: Netflix
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Sep 28, 2025
In some ways, Kathryn Bigelow’s A Home of Dynamite, the director’s first movie in eight years, feels prefer it was made for a distinct period. Perhaps it’s the truth that every act looks like a tv episode from the early 2000s, or that the script usually veers into cleaning soap opera territory. And but, the movie’s material and hypothetical scenario really feel particularly attuned to our modern-day expertise and fears. The mix of all these components results in an identity-less movie, pushed fairly actually by a ticking clock however missing the right construction and artistic choices to provide it any depth or resonance. That’s possible intentional, however it nonetheless doesn’t work regardless.
The narrative of A Home of Dynamite is easy: a nuclear missile is headed towards america, despatched from an unknown nation, as a result of arrive in just below 20 minutes. The movie, divided into three “episodes,” tracks totally different governmental and navy officers’ responses to cease the missile from making affect. All three episodes are related. Characters who seem on a pc display within the opening act develop into pivotal figures later within the movie. We perceive the context for passing quotes later within the movie. Bigelow’s intention is obvious: to indicate the complexity of how we’d react to the potential finish of the world and to emphasise the fast and pivotal decision-making so many individuals should make in such little time.
You undoubtedly really feel the strain of the clock within the movie’s first act, watching because the “time till affect” determine will get nearer and nearer to 0 minutes and 0 seconds. However throughout the second and third acts, the idea’s depth rapidly diminishes. Given the place the story’s headed every time, it turns into much less of a “race towards the clock” scenario and extra of a “how briskly can the clock go by” one. Bigelow’s movie isn’t boring, however the best way the story is offered feels wholly uninteresting and never partaking. Positive, the characters solely have 20 minutes to react to this occasion, however you could possibly think about another model of A Home of Dynamite that stretches out the clock, continuously whirling us from one character to a different with out ever resetting the story. It’s laborious to consider that model of the movie wouldn’t characteristic the identical degree of depth whereas having extra resonance.
A Home of Dynamite supplies an fascinating perspective on the complexities of the federal government, primarily by peeling again the curtain on areas that almost all of us don’t have entry to. And but, on the similar time, you’ll be able to’t assist feeling delay by how the movie is constructed. The footage feels trendy but dated; it’s shot with the depth of a big-screen thriller however couldn’t look extra like a streaming unique. You by no means really feel rewarded for sitting by way of it, and also you don’t stroll away with something to think about or take into consideration in addition to a “hopefully that by no means occurs.” It’s a hole story that so desperately desires you to take it critically; what it lacks in substance it hopes to make up for in stylistic sophistication. Sadly, there’s not a lot of that on show both.
Creator ranking: 4/10
