A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE starts with a killer premise: an anonymous missile hurtles toward Chicago, impact in under twenty minutes. The fate of millions rests in the hands of Very Serious People in suits. Somehow, this becomes a movie where nothing actually happens for almost two hours.
The big gimmick is that we keep revisiting the same chunk of time from different perspectives. In theory: tense, ticking-clock thriller. In practice: the world’s drabbest clip show. We keep cutting back to the same radar screens, the same shots of Chicago, the same Very Important Conversations in the Situation Room. It’s like the movie hit rewind on itself and never found play again.
And then there’s the President. Idris Elba, one of the most watchable people on the planet, spends most of the film as a disembodied voice on a screen. We barely see his face for over an hour. This isn’t some clever stylistic choice; it feels like Elba wanted to be in the movie as little as possible. When he finally shows up in person, around the 75-minute mark, it’s less “dramatic reveal” and more “oh right, they did say he was in this.”
The movie imagines a federal government staffed entirely by competent adults. That’s adorable. Have you watched the news in the last twenty-five years? We haven’t had uniformly competent government officials since the Kennedy administration.
On paper, there’s a nice cross-section of people in the room: all ages, backgrounds, and job titles. In practice, it feels like a distracting level of diversity used as wallpaper. Representation isn’t the problem; the problem is that nobody is written like an actual human being. The characters are mostly bland, forgettable expo-delivery systems. I should care about a nuclear missile hitting Chicago. Instead, I found myself quietly rooting for it to land—not because I’m a homicidal maniac, but because at least something would finally happen.
I loved Jared Harris as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker. His daughter lives in Chicago, and you can see the situation hollowing him out in real time. He always looks like the only adult who understands how doomed we are, and that weary intelligence gives the movie its only pulse. When he cracks, you believe it. For a few minutes, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE feels like it might be about something.
If you’re looking for real action, look elsewhere. This movie plays like an extended episode of THE WEST WING, except without any of the charm or moral crackle—or Martin Sheen wandering around muttering Latin under his breath. The most “exciting” moment is a guy jumping off a building on purpose, and I’m not totally convinced that counts as action. Mostly, it’s people standing in rooms under fluorescent lights, talking about what they might do.
The missile is supposed to hit in under twenty minutes, but the film drags that window out so long it feels like I’m stuck in a time dilation bubble where twenty minutes lasts two hours. Normally, that would be an advantage. Here, it’s just a reminder that time is precious, and I could’ve spent mine watching literally anything else.
Final Verdict: 56 out of 100