Martin Wolf

A House of Dynamite is technically assured yet dramaturgically reckless. It stages a nuclear crisis but confuses credible deterrence with sheer hysteria. After a single, ambiguous ICBM or SLBM track, the White House leaps to DEFCON 2; two failed intercept attempts later, it’s DEFCON 1. That isn’t tension – it’s a fantasy of escalation. Naturally, the other nuclear powers respond in kind, and what follows is a textbook example of how not to handle a launch alert. Most disturbing is the film’s suggestion that a president, without even minimal attribution – the missile might well be a dummy – should seriously contemplate a decapitation strike. The so-called “strike adviser”, muttering “End it, once and for all” and comparing nuclear options to steaks (“well done”), comes across less as a security professional than a pyromaniac with a briefing folder. No one trying to stabilise a crisis would speak like that. Yes, the editing and sound design are impeccable, but when a film caricatures procedures, thresholds and responsibility to this degree, what’s left is a high-gloss misunderstanding of nuclear politics. The thrill is fleeting; the aftertaste, alarming. One star.