The new Netflix film House of Dynamite has viewers fuming over what is being called the “worst ending in the history of bad endings.”
The Kathryn Bigelow-directed thriller was released on Netflix Friday, and it follows government officials as they try to come up with a response plan as a nuclear missile heads for Chicago. The star-studded cast, which includes Rebecca Ferguson, Anthony Ramos, and Idris Elba, couldn’t save the film from being skewered by social media users who complained they lost “two hours” of their lives they’ll “never get back,” as the story ends—SPOILER ALERT!—before the missile hits.
Further irking viewers is that the 18 minutes before the catastrophic event takes place are replayed from several of the characters’ perspectives, without offering a concluding payoff. “Don’t watch A House Full Of Dynamite,” one person wrote, “It’s a 20-minute short film, they retell several times over two hours, and there is no ending. It just stops.”
Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty) and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (Jackie, Zero Day) each explained that the film’s stunted conclusion serves the purpose they were going for.
“I want audiences to leave theaters thinking, ‘OK, what do we do now?’” Bigelow told Netflix’s Tudum blog. “This is a global issue, and of course I hope against hope that maybe we reduce the nuclear stockpile someday. But in the meantime, we really are living in a house of dynamite.”
“I felt it was so important to get that information out there, so we could start a conversation,” Bigelow added. “That’s the explosion we’re interested in—the conversation people have about the film afterward.”
Oppenheim had similar thoughts, telling The Radio Times that giving the film a “clean and neat resolution” would only “let the audience off the hook” on the nuclear weapons issue. “I think we’re trying to invite the audience to lean into a conversation, not about the specific scenario in this movie, but about the world in which we live,” he explained.
“Regardless of what those characters decide, we walk out of the theatre or turn off the television, and we’re still in a world where there are several 1000 nuclear weapons, many of which are on a hair trigger,” he warned.
Some fans are not convinced the film started a worthwhile conversation, however. One wrote to X that the film “hates its audience.” Another sounded off on its “‘multiple perspectives’ trope,” which they said could “f--- off” right along with the movie itself.
Even the cast is being asked to defend the creative choices in the movie. Rebecca Ferguson told an interviewer that the different perspectives reinforce “the reality of the story” and that the 18 minutes the characters have between the missile warning and the time of strike are the most important. Bigelow “wanted to tell it real-time,” Ferguson said, and doing so one time would make the film “really short.”
As far as the dissatisfaction fans have expressed about the ending, she said, “This is not about a threat. This is about the structure…a bout what it is to have nuclear weapons. If you were given an ending, you would have left satisfied. It’s not a satisfying situation.”
To be sure, not everyone who watched the film over the weekend thought the film was a miss.
One user who had the takeaway the filmmakers had hoped for, wrote, “I think A House of Dynamite accomplished its purpose. The ending is exactly what it needs to be. Anything else would undercut the message. The tension, the adrenaline, the morality. It all works frustratingly well. I will sit with this for a long time. Wow."
The film currently had a healthy 79% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a similar 77% from viewers. The Daily Beast’s Nick Schager called it a “timely cautionary tale” with a “harrowing level of detail and a sharpness that cuts to the bone.”
