This is an edition of the newsletter Let’s Get This Dread, in which I, Lester Lee, weigh in on hot topics in culture. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. This week a full, solo review of Netflix’s “A House of Dynamite” (Spoilers..duh)
We open to ominous sounds and a crawl explaining the state of the world’s nuclear weapons.
“At the end of the Cold War global powers reached the consensus that the world would be better off with fewer nuclear weapons…
…that era is now over.”
(It was all caps, btw. I’m not doing that, but you get it.)
Stakes established.
I’m in. Giddy up.
We begin at Fort Greely, a missile defense base in Alaska, Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), fresh off a rotten phone call. My guy’s day is starting off rough. Instant attitude toward his coworker, angered by the greasy chips all over his desk.
Back in DC, we meet Cathy Rogers (Moses Ingram), a FEMA employee, also fresh off a brutal call regarding her divorce.
I urge everyone to solve their domestic disputes before they clock in. You never know when a nuke’ll hit.
Cut to Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), saying farewell to her husband and child before heading off to the White House. Olivia navigates through security like a pro—even advising the new girl which breakfast to order so she doesn’t hold up the line.
No one better equipped to run the Situation Room.
Fort Greeley calls into that situation room, detecting an incoming missile from an undetermined location in the Pacific—most likely another North Korean dud—no big deal.
Phone calls start heating up a bit. Military strategists Zoom call in—but again, the Secretary of Defense believes the missile will drop into the ocean—no big deal.
Updates roll in, and suddenly, that missile is set to hit the continental USA in 18 minutes.
Step by step, our defense systems fail.
From the satellite unable to determine the origin of the nuke—to Fort Greeley unable to intercept the airbourne missile.
Cathy Rogers from FEMA guesstimates 10 million Americans will die from a nuke dropping on Chicago.
For the next 18 minutes, we are slow-walked to the end of the world.
Situation Room phones ringing off the hook, emergency iPhone alerts, paranoid accusations of which country is responsible, a Volker Bertelmann score that makes your stummy hurt.
Rebecca Ferguson’s performance demands you care about the lives of each generic office employee shuffling in the background as we creep toward DEFCON 1.
Each cut to the clock, back to her—you believe her world is ending.
She maximizes the mundane workplace jargon finger-painted by writer, Noah Oppenheim, a former MSNBC news producer.
The dialogue in this movie has the excitement, edge and creativity of an MSNBC newsroom.
That lack of creativity jolts you out of the film.
One moment, Rebecca Ferguson is holding your hand before a bomb drops and the next—screen black—the movie resets to the same 20 minutes from the perspectives of different White House-related characters.
Perhaps this day provides new information on the culprit of this attack—or maybe what America looks like in the aftermath of the destruction.
Nope.
The second act ends in the same spot as the first act, before once again resetting those 20 minutes, this time, through the lens of Idris Elba—the Barack Obama of the film. (His wife literally calls him from Kenya.)
What sets you up for a thrilling, heavy, serious disaster film from the perspective of the government employees tasked with sudden, blink of an eye, world-altering, life or death decisions—is entirely, completely, fully, wholeheartedly more interested in the decisions these people make leading up to the disaster than anything proceeding it.
And there could be a masterpiece in there—had the dialogue had any charm or flavor or sauce. These are the most chat-GPT-ass conversations I’ve ever watched.
In the crucible of a potential nuclear war, not a single character says anything of note. Nuclear weapons made the world a “house of dynamite”, blah blah.
It’s possible to tell a grounded, thrilling story about professionals walking down hallways, quickly answering phone calls, that includes vibrant conversations and unique character idiosyncrasies.
Aaron Sorkin owns a castle somewhere from doing so.
Point Break is one of the coolest movies ever made. I thought director Katheryn Bigelow was into surfing culture or was a huge Big Ten football fan—but nope, turns out she just loved the FBI.
After creating The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty—Kathryn Bigelow is just a nerdy, weird lady in awe of the intricacies of the military command chain.
She didn’t make Point Break because she liked banked robberies. She was just super fascinated by what the cops ate for lunch. Two meatball sandwiches, apparently.
It’d be like the director of Air Bud spending the rest of his career telling dark, gritty films about the inner workings of sports referees.
Kathryn Bigelow and Noah Oppenheim teamed up to create one of the most overindulgent art pieces about the boring nuts and bolts of an impending nuclear strike—over…and over…and over—three times—without any curiosity about what happens immediately after.
We never find out which country attacks.
We don’t learn whether or not the president is convinced to counter-strike.
We do, however, get a cameo from WNBA superstar Angel Reese, shooting hoops with Obama, I mean, “unnamed President of the United States”.
Rebecca Ferguson plays Hot Cross Buns on the recorder with her whole chest, bless her, only to be erased by an hour and a half of new characters—all also playing Hot Cross Buns, with lesser enthusiasm—until, after 3 consecutive repeats of the same actions, the credits hit.
Crisis averted. Or everyone’s dead. Who cares?
I love this movie.
Just an unbelievable display of self-assuredness.
Katheryn Bigelow hits a home run into the parking lot—creating the vibe of terror and panic and once you’re in, says, “Watch this”—and does it two more times.
This movie lives in a house of mirrors, each reflection winking, shooting finger guns saying “you’re the best” back at itself.
Bigelow’s earned the right to make this nonsense. If her ex, James Cameron, can live in a submarine to make space Pocohontas, then she can pump fake the apocalypse 3 times.
This is the equality we need in the film industry. Let women create mid too.
Thanks for reading.
Let me know what movies you want to write about next. Shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s yap.
Follow ya boy on social media: Facebook. Twitter. Bluesky. Instagram.
