A House of Dynamite

Imagine telling a story at a party. You start off by stating how crazy the event is because it's about how the world almost ended. Then, the rest of the two hour story stays there with no real details or conclusion. Are you bored yet?

Now the story holes. The military is able to detect a missile launch but cannot see where it sourced from or what it actually is. We also watch it snail across the sky and we are unable to shoot it down.

Maybe the higher rankings for the originality of the story are justified. In my humble opinion entertainment isn't supposed to be a bunch on unknowns with a defined ending. I would like my two hours back on this one.

Had high hopes for this one, seen a few critics giving it a high rating.

It starts out great with good tension, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and deliveres great acting from the cast.

Then at a nerve-wrecking moment it shifts to another perspective, and that really dragged down the tension. I think this would have been better with a linear storyline. Switching between perspectives instead of dividing them into sections would have kept the tension higher throughout, bad call from the director..

The ending (without any spoilers) really ruined it for me. Could have been the movie of the year, but bad calls from the director drags it down to a 6.

Watching this film is like being told you've got takeout for dinner, only to end up with casserole.

I'm sure there was some underlying creative thoughts from the director with this story line but it wasn't clever nor smart. They had a great idea right in their palms and they threw it all away.

The ending of this film has to go down in history as one of the most frustrating endings in all of cinema. I've felt unsatisfied and in absolute disbelief. You almost feel cheated as you've become so invested in the story to only be let down right at the end! (and that's an understatement!).

It's worth watching but prepare for heartbreak.

The whole story is told within 30-40 minutes. Then the same story is told 2 more times from different perspectives. And they come to no conclusion, no new information, nothing.

It's 3 times the same story with no added value.

They tried to do some artsy movie using the petal story structure, and utterly failed to deliver the whole point of a petal story structure.

A House of Dynamite was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the mind behind Zero Dark Thirty and Detroit. Unlike the latter two movies, however, the former fails to deliver.

What another review calls a "flower narrative style" is not one of the ways that I care for a story to be told in film, but I do acknowledge that it has become somewhat fashionable in recent years. Additionally, the ending of the picture was as abrupt as it was deeply unsatisfying. I will not encourage anyone to watch it.