Longtime Netflix subscribers should know by now that the streamer rarely lets its original movies play in theaters before their debut.
This week, there’s a rare exception as director Kathryn Bigelow‘s political thriller A House of Dynamite is heading to a limited number of theaters on October 10.
Ahead of its streaming debut later this month, A House of Dynamite is the one Netflix movie I can’t wait to watch in October.
Judging from the way Netflix is pushing this flick, it may in line for an awards run if audiences respond to it.
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‘A House of Dynamite’ Has an Amazing Cast
Between Prime Video’s Heads of State and Netflix’s A House of Dynamite, Idris Elba may be the first actor to play the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of the United States in a single year. The latter film is a much more serious story than the former, and it casts Elba as a man faced with an impossible choice when his nation comes under attack.
Elba gets top billing, but he doesn’t enter the story right away. Mission: Impossible‘s Rebecca Ferguson gets a lot of the early screen time as Captain Olivia Walker, one of the first people to realize that the nation is under attack. In the face of an apocalyptic event, Walker has to stay at her station even if it means she’ll never see her family again. The rest of the cast is ridiculously talented, including supporting turns from Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Anthony Ramos, Jason Clarke, Moses Ingram, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Kaitlyn Dever.
The Premise Is Very Intense
Most apocalyptic movies follow heroes who have to beat impossible odds to prevent the end of the world. A House of Dynamite flips that script on its head by depicting an event that can’t be stopped. One of the United States’ enemies has fired a nuclear weapon at Chicago, and it may trigger a nuclear war. The government isn’t even sure who’s responsible for the attack, but there are some likely suspects.
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Regardless of who fired the first shot, there are only 20 minutes before the missile strikes its target. That may seem like an eternity as the movie rewinds time and plays out the same events three times while shifting perspectives with each run through. This isn’t a story about preventing the end of the world — it’s about helplessness in the face of a disaster that even the most powerful men and women in the world can’t stop. How they choose to face that end creates the tension.
Kathryn Bigelow Is a Fierce Director
Only three women have ever won the Oscar for Best Director, and Kathryn Bigelow was the first. Her 2008 film, The Hurt Locker, took that award and the Best Picture trophy at the Oscars. It’s probably not a coincidence that Netflix just added that movie on October 1. Bigelow has a lot of great films to her name, including Zero Dark Thirty, K-19: The Widowmaker, Strange Days, Near Dark and the original Point Break.
Bigelow’s reputation as a filmmaker is a big reason why A House of Dynamite is getting so much attention. So far, the film is enjoying an 89 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was well-received at the Venice International Film Festival in September. However, the movie reportedly did not get a warm reception at the New York Film Festival. That may indicate the film will be more divisive than the initial reviews led us to believe. But we’ll find out for ourselves when A House of Dynamite hits theaters on October 10 ahead of its streaming premiere near the end of the month.
A House of Dynamite will stream on Netflix on October 24.
