When I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, A House of Dynamite, I kept thinking about a saying from the eighties, regarding cinema in the UK: “British cinema is alive and well and living in television.” The film premiered in the Venice Film Festival competition, and it is a Netflix production. Unlike Cannes, which refuses to screen Netflix films, Alberto Barbera and his team welcome the streamer with open arms. Supposedly, it rhymes with their attempts to be a major player, presenting Academy Award contenders. Last year, Cannes still came out on top in that regard, not least with Anora. It remains to be seen what impact the Venice awards for Jarmusch and Safdie will have during the upcoming Oscar season.

Bigelow’s film didn’t win any Mostra awards, unlike The Smashing Machine. They still had things in common, regardless of the purported difference between A24 and Netflix. We will get back to that. The storyline is basically that a nuclear missile has been detected heading towards the US. The origin of the device is unknown, and it is expected to hit Chicago in around 20 minutes. We will see that time frame play out from different perspectives in situation rooms and other locations. Is there a compelling reason why, and does it add anything to the film? The answer is that the spectator will rapidly stop caring either way.

Rebecca Ferguson plays Captain Olivia Walker, who is some kind of Intelligence Analyst who works in the White House Situation Room. The reason I know that is that she is treated to one of the myriad explanatory texts on the screen, telling us where we are. Other characters and locations will be introduced in the same manner, mainly creating a sense of dread or boredom. The president will only be seen towards the end, looking suspiciously like Idris Elba. Is the invasion in the film of a British kind? Probably not. Ferguson seems to be one of the thespians most comfortable with her part, maybe since she is not asked to speak in her mother tongue.

A House of Dynamite is a dud

To say that we’ve seen it all before would be a vast understatement. Countless films have been made on the topic since Fail Safe and Dr Strangelove in 1964. I constantly thought about the TV series 24. A comparison between the two is hardly flattering for Bigelow’s film. Any episode of 24 has more tension and cinematic complexity in 42 minutes than this 112-minute chore. It also manages to create aesthetically compelling exposition texts as opposed to the afore-mentioned ones in A House of Dynamite. It made me think of the anglophile Alain Resnais’ reflection about how TV works such as 24, X-Files, and others boasted a more complex cinematic expression than virtually anything currently seen in cinemas.

Ferguson is not the only Swede connected to the film. Three-time Academy Award winner Paul N.J Ottosson is on board once again as sound designer, and his contribution might be the main reason to see, and above all, listen to A House of Dynamite. Immersing yourself into single sequences makes more sense than trying to follow the hackneyed story.

After the ending of A House of Dynamite, an elderly woman in front of me shouted, “Mamma Mia!”. I have no idea why. I didn’t think the film had that much in common with the ABBA-related feature, nor did it generate any strong emotional reactions besides relief, either. Maybe it was the Swedish connection Rebecca Ferguson. I have no idea what impact Bigelow’s film will have, come the Academy Awards. The competition is not that great, but even though there are occasional glimpses of the director’s muscular direction from Zero Dark Thirty (2012), this is far from a cinematic tour de force.