A House of Dynamite presents itself as a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear proliferation but ends up making a case for more robust military defence. How did a film, ostensibly so well-researched and striving for political realism, make the mistake of giving moral ammunition to its opposing side? This unintended consequence can be explained in a few ways, but it is ultimately the film’s liberal overconfidence in its own position that is to blame.
Dramatising what might happen if a nuclear missile is launched at the United States sounds like a nail-biting scenario for a movie, even if the majority of the drama involves screens and tense phone calls. But director Kathryn Bigelow dilutes the gravity of this situation with embarrassing characterisation and a questionable commitment to the facts she claims to be serious about. If Bigelow sees the nuclear threat as a real existential risk, and if she sees denuclearisation as morally urgent, then dramatic licence should take second seat. (RELATED: Trump’s Iran Strikes Have Important Ramifications)
Instead, what we see is an almost uniformly cowardly response to the situation from high-ranking employees whose job it is to deal with such a crisis. Our cast of characters is panic-stricken, in tears, and unable to deal with what is happening. Where is the Stoic resolve one might marginally expect from those appointed to have Stoic resolve? It’s possible, of course, that everyone would just fold like a house of cards when reality comes knocking. But even if that were so, the takeaway would then surely be that there is a deficiency in the system, and tougher people need to be appointed. (RELATED: Robert Reich and the Cult of Cowardice)
Whatever the truth about these defensive capabilities, it doesn’t change the fact that a weapons problem does not necessarily lead us to a ‘no weapons’ conclusion.
Never mind that this is the type of negative PR we usually anticipate being disseminated by the United States’ enemies; we are also expected to believe in the possibility of a nuclear scenario where nobody knows what is going on and absolutely nothing works. Human folly and incompetence should never be underestimated, but is this really plausible? In the film, interceptor missiles are said to have a 61 percent level of accuracy, which has since been disputed by the Pentagon. To be sure, governments do not always tell the gospel truth, but neither do filmmakers.
Whatever the truth about these defensive capabilities, it doesn’t change the fact that a weapons problem does not necessarily lead us to a ‘no weapons’ conclusion. The cowboy in a stand-off might like to wish away all weapons, but what matters most in that moment is that his gun works. This element of wishful thinking is perhaps the hardest aspect of the film to respect. Tragic geopolitical realism tells us a different story from the film’s implied ideal of nations finding common ground for disarmament by being sentimental with one another.
One particularly cloying moment shows a young, high-ranking American official burst into tears as he tries to offer some sort of promise (one he couldn’t possibly be able to guarantee) to the Russian foreign minister. His wife is pregnant, see, and he doesn’t want the bomb to drop. This appeal to cheap sentimentality is present throughout the film, as the viewer is constantly shown pictures of loved ones, just in case we forget our characters are people. These are eyebrow-raising decisions from a film wanting to achieve a kind of docu-drama level of accuracy.
Do the filmmakers believe that the solution to nuclear proliferation is a sentimental one? If anything, A House of Dynamite depicts a dangerous moment where military precision, intelligence, and readiness need to be at their highest level. This also requires either the use of force or, at the very least, the operational potential to use force. This is subject matter that should be taken very seriously, but Bigelow is unable to find her way out of the catch-22. She admits that the possibility of attack leads to a moral dilemma, but her answer simply seems to be that it would be better if there were no nuclear weapons.
A quote variously attributed to Kipling, Orwell, and Churchill seems fitting here. The saying goes that “People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” It is maybe more reliable to quote Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup, from A Few Good Men (1992), when he says that “we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.” One can hope, like Bigelow does, that a nuclear scenario of the kind depicted never occurs. One can also hope that the fainting spells and tech issues from those meant to keep a nation safe don’t occur either. However, in a time where the genie is out of the bottle, the audience deserves more than the intellectual equivalent of wishful thinking.
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