Rating: R | Runtime: 112 minutes
Release Date: October 10th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Director(s): Kathryn Bigelow
Writer(s): Noah Oppenheim

There is no Plan B.

In the immortal words of Dennis Hopper in Speed to the co-star of Kathryn Bigelow’s hit film Point Break, Keanu Reeves: “Pop quiz hotshot. A nuke has been launched from the Pacific Ocean and will hit Chicago in nineteen minutes unless your hope-and-a-prayer defensive ballistics stop it first. You can keep a level head and figure out who’s responsible or launch an attack on all your enemies’ nuclear stockpiles right now, triggering global suicide. What do you do? What do you do?!”

A great cast performing within the logical and presumably authentic parameters of an impossible situation. Bigelow executes it to perfection via a triptych of vantage points all cutting to black at the same moment (those tasked to intercept, those tasked to ready a response, and the president’s journey towards making his decision).

What do they do? What would any of us do? I wish it was a question we’d never need to answer, but the temperature feels like we will sooner or later. So, the choice to leave it all to our interpretation only makes the futility that much more palpable. It’s a great tool for suspense and, perhaps, a cop-out, but I do believe it’s the best narrative route for full existential potency.

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Rebecca Ferguson as Captain Olivia Walker in A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE; Credit: Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.