An explosive 'House of Dynamite'

 

    Terse and chilling, director Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite tackles a situation most of us would prefer not to contemplate: a nuclear attack on a major American city.

    Working from a screenplay by Noah Oppenheim, Bigelow divides her movie into three sections, each offering a different vantage point on the same brief time during which a missile hurtles toward the US.

    Few in the movie’s large ensemble of military and civilian characters are psychologically prepared for an event that probably will kill 10 million people in the initial blast. Scores of additional deaths from fallout are sure to follow. The missile's origins are unknown, but it's headed for Chicago.

     Those familiar with previous Bigelow hits such as Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Hurt Locker (2008) know she’s skilled at sustaining tension, and A House of Dynamite  stands as confirmation of her ability to rivet attention. In keeping with an intensely concentrated approach, Bigelow shorthands character development, opting instead to put her characters to the test.

    How quickly can they accept that they’re not dealing with a routine exercise? How good are they at handling  fear? Can they react reasonably under intense pressure?

     A strong and well-selected cast includes Rebecca Ferguson as a White House Situation Room official, Gabriel Basso as a Deputy National Security Advisor, Jared Harris as the Secretary of Defense, and Idris Elba as the President of the United States. Tracy Letts portrays a folksy general who commands personnel who scan banks of monitors. A FEMA official (Moses Ingram) tries to prepare an evacuation response.

     House of Dynamite employs too many actors to name them all. Many roles are relegated more to function than revelation. Still, Ferguson, Harris, and Elba convey the emotions accompanying concern for those outside the security perimeter, seen in glimpses that remind us that most people are unaware of a pending Armageddon.

      Snippets of story detonate along the way. A Major General at a remote outpost (Anthony Ramos) falls into despair when his crew fails to intercept the missile. The Secretary of Defense grapples with the fact that his daughter lives in Chicago, the targeted city. An expert on North Korea (Greta Lee) watches a reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg with her son when she's called for advice.  

       This contrast between two kinds of horrible warfare may be a bit on the nose for a movie that avoids extraneous observation, but A House of Dynamite mostly meets its subject head-on.

      Given current preoccupations — wars in Gaza and the Ukraine, National Guard troops in major cities, and a government shutdown — A House of Dynamite may seem a little out of sync with today's worries.

    Perhaps that’s the point. Bigelow’s movie serves as a sobering tap on the shoulder from someone intent on reminding us that other dangers lurk. Heaven forbid that one day a missile makes a mockery of the quotidian unfolding of what, for most of us, will begin as just another day. 

 

Performances elevate 'Hillbilly Elegy'

     What could be more uplifting? A young man overcomes poverty and a host of family issues that include his mother’s self-destructive bouts with addiction. Despite what seem like insurmountable obstacles,  this young man manages to attend college and obtain a law degree from Yale. He ascends,  yes, but he never forgets his Kentucky and Ohio background. Warts and all, he honors his family.

     That's the gist of director Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy, an adaptation of J.D. Vance's memoir about growing up among "hill" people who never quite shake their Appalachian roots.

      Howard's  "elegy" distinguishes itself with two strong performances. An unrecognizable Glenn Close plays the family's grandmother, Mamaw. Mamaw embodies the movie's survivalist virtues. Her husband was an alcoholic and her daughter Beth (Amy Adams) has destroyed her life with drugs while floating through bad relationships and lost jobs.  

     But Mamaw refuses to let Beth's son, J.D., throw his life away. She knows pain and suffering but she's as hard as an aging artery and Close turns her into an unapologetic battler.

     When everything else seems to be failing, Mamaw takes over. The wayward J.D. (played as a kid by Owen Asztalos), moves in with Mamaw. She lays down the law, a mighty act of will.

     For her part, Adams gives Beth the volatility that accompanies a life that's constantly spinning out of control. Beth's efforts at conducting something resembling normal life waver between comical and pathetic. 

      The movie shifts time periods, flashing back to the 1990s from the first decade of the 21st Century,  a stop-and-start again structure that can make the story feel longer than its one hour and 56 minutes.

     By the time J.D. heads to law school, he's being played by Gabriel Basso.  He also has an encouraging girlfriend, an East-Indian/American portrayed by Frieda Pinto. 

     On the verge of capitalizing on his law-school bona fides, J.D. is summoned home by his sister (Haley Bennett) because Mom has overdosed. Bennett's character, who married and remained in Middletown, Ohio, has exhausted her capacity to deal with a mother who seems irredeemable. 

     Far from perfect, Hillbilly Elegy, with a screenplay by Vanessa Taylor, calibrates Vance's story for multiplex audiences ready to devour a family tale that gives a full-throated endorsement to tough love, the kind that allows Mamaw to save young J.D.

    The storytelling can be uneven, but to ignore Hillbilly Elegy would mean missing a chance to watch Close build a character from the hard, gravelly soil of deprivation and to experience Adams as a mercurial woman who lights fires that threaten to torch everything her character touches.

Boys seek indepedence in the woods

The Kings of Summer doesn't quite rule, but it has its charms.

Every summer, a small movie looks as if it's poised to be the season's sleeper hit. Put The Kings of Summer into that aspirational category, but don't bet the rent that it will fulfill any record-breaking ambitions.

That's not to say that The Kings of Summer -- the story of three teen-agers who leave home and build a ramshackle cabin in the woods -- is charmless, but rather to caution that
the movie's overall impact matches its modesty.

Besides, it must mean something that the most interesting performance in this movie about teen rebellion is given by Nick Offerman, an adult best known for his work on NBC's Parks and Recreation. Offerman's deadpan style, wry delivery and willingness to portray a less-than-admirable dad helps spike the movie's adolescent punch.

It's just that kind of mildly mordant touch that keeps Kings of Summer from falling into a sink pit of teen-movie cliches.

The movie begins in earnest when 15-year-old Joe (Nick Robinson) gets crosswise with his dad during an aggressively competitive Monopoly game. We understand why Joe and his dad channel emotion into Monopoly. They're both having a rough go after the death of Joe's mother.

Joe's embittered dad slams the boy with withering verbal assaults, delivered without inflection by Offerman who knows how to play a guy who's fed up with life and seems to expect nothing much from it.

What's an aggrieved 15-year-old to do? Joe decides to round up a buddy and head for the woods. He convinces his friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso) to join him. Patrick is eager to escape the clutches of his self-absorbed parents (an amusing Megan Mullally and Marc Evan Jackson).

Another youngster, the oddball Biaggio (Moises Arias) worms his way into the group, providing what every movie about teen-agers needs: the unashamedly weird kid.

Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, working from a screenplay by Chris Galletta, finds humor in the fact that the boys aren't natural woodsmen. When they hunt for food, a self-sufficiency pledge goes by the boards: It doesn't hurt that the boys' foray into the wilderness takes place within walking distance of a chicken restaurant. So much for living off the land.

The alliance between buddies is challenged when Patrick and Joe square off in the game of love. Joe has a crush on Kelly (Erin Moriarty). She likes Joe, but might be more inclined toward Patrick. When Kelly shows up, the boyhood paradise begins to crumble, something we knew would happen all along, possibly because the house the boys build looks as if it's been engineered for collapse.

The young actors give strong performances, and Vogt-Roberts makes room for a couple of scenes in which the boys get in touch with their primal selves.

It's a bit of a stretch to believe that three kids could pull off this kind of disappearing act, but unless they do, there's no movie. And maybe Vogt-Roberts means to suggest that, to some degree, the adults are allowing these kids room to fail.

Whatever its deficiencies, Kings of Summer earns points for understanding what it's like to be 15 and fed up with life at home -- but not entirely prepared to leave it.