Directed by Kathryn Bigelow | Written by Noah Oppenheim | 112 min | ▲▲▲1/2 | On Netflix
It’s been a long while since we’ve experienced a truly terrifying nuclear thriller. Maybe because the threat of nuclear war feels weirdly abstract in the face of climate change, rising authoritarianism, and a much more conventional war in Ukraine.
In the ’70s and ’80s the threat of armageddon was constant. As a teenager I understood the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, and films like Threads, When The Wind Blows and The Day After crystalized that anxiety. When the Soviet Union fell, so too did the worry that we were at any time moments away from death from above. Nuclear nations agreed to reduce their stockpiles.
But as this film reminds us, that era is over.
It frames 19 minutes of crisis when an intercontinental ballistic missile is spotted by the American military over the Sea of Japan. It’s unclear where it was launched from — maybe a North Korean submarine not previously detected? These kinds of tests aren’t unusual. But quickly the tone changes. The missile reaches low orbit and is predicted to hit somewhere in the United States.
Video calls are initiated between a general (the excellent Tracy Letts) at Stratcom, the United States Strategic Command, the Secretary of Defence (Jared Harris), a White House military liaison (Rebecca Ferguson) and admiral (Jason Clarke), and eventually the President (Idris Elba).
Decisions need to be made. What happens if a missile interception system in Alaska (run by a major played by Anthony Ramos) fails to bring down the incoming warhead? Do the powers that be in Washington (and in hidden bunkers elsewhere) launch a retaliation attack against presumed enemies before the attack arrives? The window for an aggressive response is small. Or, do they not launch American missiles, and risk looking weak, encouraging more strikes? As one character suggests, the choice is between surrender or suicide.
The 19 minutes in fact take more like 35, as the clock is brought back to the start and we see the events take place two more times from other characters’ perspectives, bringing in brief, but solid cameos by Moses Ingram, Greta Lee, Willa Fitzgerald, and Kaitlyn Dever. This is a stellar ensemble, with Barry Ackroyd’s hand-held camerawork bringing a sweaty effectiveness — regular readers will note that I’m not a big fan of that technique, but Ackroyd’s work with Ken Loach, Paul Greengrass, and Bigelow has marked him as a talent that delivers a sense of docudrama authenticity.
Adding to the white-knuckle tension is a terrific, string-heavy horror-adjacent score by Volker Bertelmann, and, of course, Bigelow’s typical gift with sustaining suspense, as she’s done so well in films like Detroit, Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker.
All of it serving to deliver a cautionary tale of what could happen literally any day of the week, a world-changing event ending the lives of countless millions, where surviving to suffer would likely be a lot worse than a sudden, white-hot immolation. But this isn’t about what happens after — it’s about how quickly and easily those in power could take us there.
