A House of Dynamite

 

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, Willa Fitzgerald, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kaitlyn Dever
Running Time: 112 min.
Rating: R

★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

What's so startling about Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite is how it maintains the momentum of remaining just twenty minutes away from imminent doom for the picture's entire running length. By shifting perspectives between multiple characters and doubling back to reveal crucial information, Bigelow presents a horrifying scenario that doesn't seem so far removed from current reality. And while experts will probably pick apart certain details in screenwriter and former NBC News President Noah Oppenheim's script, the chilling conceit behind his apocalyptic premise undeniably resonates.

No longer a false alarm or hypothetical, these officials try to navigate a nuclear pressure cooker where experience helps, but isn't enough, especially when a half-broken system and lack of information leaves the fate of the United States up to a coin toss. Buoyed by an all-star cast, their characters know something the world doesn't as seconds tick away, each forced to endure the quiet torture of telling their families without really "telling" them. But beyond that, it's compelling to watch how they function as cogs in a giant machine that just isn't built for something like this. 

Showing the same sequence of events from three points of view, the action opens early morning in Washington D.C., when White House Situation Room manager Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson, Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington (Gabriel Basso) and the President of the United States (Idris Elba) are informed that radar detected an unidentified ICBM launched over the Pacific on a trajectory to strike Chicago within twenty minutes. After being initially dismissed as a routine missile test, events take a horrifying turn,with all hands on deck to determine the next steps. 

The President joins a video call with Secretary of Defense Reid Baker (Jared Harris) and U.S. Strategic Command's General Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts) as Fort Greely commander Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) is ordered to launch ground based interceptors to take out the missile. But when further complications arise and FEMA activates an emergency response, the President must make an unimaginable choice. With Chicago minutes away from being leveled, the realization sets in that the worst may still be ahead.

There's no reason for those involved to believe it'll be anything other than a normal day, or as normal as it gets in jobs this crucial to national security. For a short while, a small sense of predictability and routine follows Olivia to work that morning as she says goodbye to her husband and sick young son, unaware of what awaits. Ferguson's performance in these early scenes convey the mannerisms and demeanor of a deliberate, dedicated woman well equipped to handle crisis. But even she'll reach her breaking point while wrangling all the players necessary to stop the unthinkable. 

Despite opening those lines of communication, chaos reigns when the story shifts to Basso's flustered Baerington, who juggles the responsibility of impending fatherhood with a rapidly approaching disaster. He's nervous but exceptionally qualified in his attempts to advise the President, butting heads with Letts' General Brady, a Cheney-like war hawk hellbent on retaliation, with or without the necessary intel. The question is whether that's worth the risk when they're still unsure who's responsible or why. When technology fails, plans evolve, tragically resigning them to focus on what's still within their control.  

That's especially true for Harris's Secretary of Defense Baker, a recent widower whose estranged daughter Caroline (Kaitlyn Dever) lives directly in the path of destruction. Their brief conversation and Baker's actions after it are by far the the film's most emotionally jarring moments. There's also some smaller, but memorable turns from Moses Ingram as a FEMA official, Jason Clarke as the White House Situation Room Director, Willa Fitzgerald as a CNN reporter and Greta Lee as a National Intelligence Officer who takes the most important phone call of her life in a cruelly ironic location.   

Elba's believable portrayal as Commander-in-Chief is bolstered by subtler scenes leading into the catastrophe that puts his character's personality and leadership style into context. Already exhausted, this drains what little energy he has left as the various scenarios are laid out for someone who was making a charity appearance only minutes earlier. 

Leaning on his wife and First Lady (Renée Elise Goldsberry) for support, it's ultimately military aide Reeves (Jonah Hauer-King) who guides the POTUS in choosing between Bareington and Brady's opposing options. While the film leaves a little too much hanging in the air, it's  fairly obvious what occurs, even if it isn't shown. Still, you can't help but wonder if a more conclusive, powerful payoff could have better driven this nightmare scenario home. 

Taking inspiration from similarly themes genre classics like Fail Safe and The Day After, it's a safe bet the eerily prescient script was written years prior, serving as a stark warning for any administration, but most especially unprepared, lesser qualified ones. And while the film's title is lifted from a key line of dialogue, it also works as a choice metaphor for describing this problem we're still no closer to solving. Despite an ending that stops short of delivering an unforgettable final blow, Bigelow steps back enough to let viewers debate and dissect what they think they've just seen.                                                         

Juror #2

Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Leslie Bibb, Keifer Sutherland, Amy Aquino, Adrienne C. Moore, Francesca Eastwood
Running Time: 114 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

In the tradition of 90's potboilers like A Time to Kill, The Firm or even Clint Eastwood's own Absolute Power, the director's Juror #2 is a gripping legal thriller that foregoes histrionics to instead examine the consciences of its characters. Quieter and more subtle than expected, there's a welcome lack of flash to how Eastwood efficiently makes his point about how the legal system can fail even those with noble intentions. There are grey areas here as everyone involved attempts to do the right thing, no matter how skewed the scales seem.

Jurors with different backgrounds, personalities and biases forced to reach a consensus can often make for compelling human drama, but when one's harboring a major secret, those stakes are raised. It's a relatively simple premise, but the performances and execution go a long way, reminding us how good Eastwood is when interpreting material as solid as what screenwriter Jonathan Abrams provides. Logical and engaging, this reimagines Twelve Angry Men through a different lens, with the clever twist of a lone holdout being directly involved in the case he's selected to serve on.

Savannah based journalist and recovering alcoholic Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is called for jury duty in a murder trial just as his pregnant wife Ally (Zoey Deutch) is about to give birth after having previously miscarried. When an attempt to be dismissed fails, he joins eleven other jurors in hearing the case of James Sythe (Gabriel Basso), who's accused of murdering his girlfriend Kendall Carter (Francesca Eastwood) last year after the couple's heated argument at a local bar. 

Prosecutor Faith Killebrew (Toni Collette) anticipates an easy conviction, potentially bolstering her popularity as she runs for district attorney. The opposing counsel is overworked public defender Eric Resnik (Chris Messina), who maintains his client's innocence despite struggling to overcome a mountain of circumstantial evidence and key witnesses. But when Justin realizes he was at the scene and possesses crucial information that could clear Sythe's name, he panics. At the advice of his AA sponsor, defense attorney Larry (Keifer Sutherland), Justin keeps his mouth shut, instead attempting to plant reasonable doubt in these jurors' minds without incriminating himself.

The script covers itself well in explaining how Justin not only slipped through the cracks onto this jury, but isn't aware of his possible role in the crime until the trial's underway. In certain respects, he couldn't be safer since the police already have their man, but knowing the truth, he drowns in guilt as opinionated jurors' theories place him in increasing jeopardy during deliberations. And while Justin's an amiable guy who'd rather be by his wife's side, he still has personal demons he's working to put behind him.

Through Eastwood's use of strategically placed flashbacks, more alarming details concerning where Justin went and what he did that night after leaving the bar are revealed. As small bits of visual information unspool pieces at a time, the fuller picture emerges about why he's so torn about coming forward. Weighing the ramifications of convicting of an innocent man or telling a truth that could  destroy his life, Hoult subtly conveys his character's heavy burden as a trembling Justin nervously tries to nudge these stubborn jurors.

Most of the jury deem Sythe guilty before they've entered the room, such as an irritated Marcus (Cedric Yarbrough), who has an ax to grind that has more to do with his own experiences than the defendant's actual guilt or innocence. Making matters worse, he's incredibly suspicious of James, who's fighting an uphill battle in convincing this group to consider alternate possibilities. That is until retired homicide detective Harold Chicowski senses there could be a whole lot more to this case.  

Expertly played by the great J.K. Simmons, Chicowski's been around the block, his investigative skills proving to be both a blessing and curse for James. One of the more compelling ideas he introduces is that of confirmation bias, with police working backwards to finger an obvious suspect before collecting evidence that affirms it. For them, it's all about the optics of getting that conviction, just so long as their suspect fits the profile. It's something prosecutor Killebrew knows all too well, having presumably leveraged it to her benefit many times before.   

Killebrew's rivalry with Resnick is one of the more realistically rewarding details in the script, bucking the usual trend for this genre. Far from being at each others throats, they're friends, colleagues and former classmates who may be on opposite sides, but can still joke and commiserate over drinks. This shared respect becomes increasingly important when Killebrew starts having her own doubts about Sythe's guilt. Unsurprisingly, a superb Toni Collette brings additional layers of complexity to this woman as she grows suspicious of Hoult's tormented protagonist. The result is a tense, intelligently written showdown between two decent people that Eastwood stages with nuance and restraint. 

As a potentially innocent man's freedom hangs in the balance, the title character can't be sure whether he's actually responsible. And neither can we, until the realization hits that Juror #2 isn't about that, even if we're given more than enough information to put those pieces together. In the eyes of the law, all that ever matters is the verdict, which sometimes exists in an entirely separate universe as our preconceived notions of justice.