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. Possibly 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 state of affairs 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 inventive choices to provide it any depth or resonance. That’s doubtless intentional, however it nonetheless doesn’t work regardless.
The narrative of A Home of Dynamite is easy: a nuclear missile is headed towards the US, despatched from an unknown nation, resulting from 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 influence. All three episodes are linked. 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 point out 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 influence” determine will get nearer and nearer to 0 minutes and 0 seconds. However through the second and third acts, the idea’s depth rapidly diminishes. Given you understand the place the story’s headed every time, it turns into much less of a “race towards the clock” state of affairs and extra of a “how briskly can the clock go by” one. Bigelow’s movie is never boring, however the way in which the story is introduced feels wholly uninteresting and never partaking. Positive, the characters solely have 20 minutes to react to this occasion, however you may think about an alternate model of A Home of Dynamite that stretches out the clock, consistently whirling us from one character to a different with out ever resetting the story. It’s arduous to consider that model of the movie wouldn’t function the identical degree of depth whereas having extra resonance.
A Home of Dynamite gives an attention-grabbing 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 postpone 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 it, and also you don’t stroll away with something to think about or take into consideration apart from a “hopefully that by no means occurs.” It’s a hole story that so desperately needs you to take it severely; 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.
Writer score: 4/10