A House of Dynamite

The best "what if?" nuclear war movie since "The Day After" rocked the ratings for ABC in 1983, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is another taut, thrilling film from Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty).

If you're old enough to remember how "The Day After" instantly became part of the zeitgeist after airing on network TV (long before streaming and cable offered so many viewing choices) you'll see similarities in the way Bigelow tells her tale of everyday people experiencing a day that changes the world.

Bigelow's cast is off the charts, pulling us into her unique story structure in which she reveals the same timeline from three distinctly different viewpoints that constantly overlap.

Her first focus is on Olivia Walker (the reliably great Rebecca Ferguson from all the recent Mission Impossible films) a senior defense official who is one of the first to experience a rogue nuclear warhead appearing on the giant screens of the situation room. Is it a nuclear test from South Korea? Is it intended to look like one?

Surely the missile will rise high and then fall into the ocean.

When it doesn't, flattening its trajectory toward a major metropolitan city in the USA, all hell breaks loose. Her boss, Admiral Mark Miller (Jason Clarke from "Oppenheimer") is the calming voice that "everything is okay people, we're all trained for this, it will turn out to be nothing.". But as more facts come in, events spiral and escalate. We meet an ever widening net of characters up the political ladder all the way to the President of the United States, who is unseen in this chapter, but heard over speakers.

Just as the missile is about to hit, Bigelow resets the story, taking us back to the start of the events and and the staff of an Alaska satellite station led by Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos from "In the Heights"). They are our first defense against any encroaching threat. Cabinet meetings are hastily called and General Anthony Brady (the always brilliant Tracy Letts) begins preparing everyone on options for retaliation. It's the same conundrum we've been facing since the Cold War. At what point do you deescalate to avoid world destruction, before it's too late to defend everyone and everything you love?

Jared Harris (Allied, Cherbobyl) is great as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker, who seems to be realizing just how complicated and limited his options are, real-time, along with us, the viewer.

In the final chapter, Bigelow resets the story to the beginning again, this time finally showing us the President, played by Idris Elba. Elba just played the UK Prime Minister in "Heads of State" earlier this year, I think he's doing a tour of World Leaders. His President is a capable man, astonished by the sudden turn of world events and the nearly impossible choice in front of him.

The rest of the cast is studded with great actors, including Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy) as Jake, the young Deputy National Security Officer thrust into a position of expertise.

Greta Lee (Past Lives) is an analysis expert on her day off with her child when the world turns upside down.

Only Kaitlyn Dever (Dear Evan Hansen) seems wasted in an underwritten throwaway role as Baker's alienated daughter.

Bigelow shows the same immense talent for creating tension that she thrilled with in "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty". She is the clear leader in the clubhouse in creating superb film recreations of historic modern military operations. By applying those same story telling gifts to a fictional "What If?" scenario, she instantly renders it all too plausible, especially with all the real life global instability in Moscow and North Korea we're experiencing today.

Many online have bitched about the ending, which I won't reveal here.

From my view, it's perfect. Isn't it up to us? Is there any logical conclusion to be had?

I think anyone that listens to the sounds over the end credits will resolve any ambiguity they may be feeling.

Fast paced, suspenseful as hell and powerful, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE ratchets up an A.