Among the most cherished genres in American cinema today might uncharitably be described as ‘dad films’. These are blockbusters dripping with testosterone, usually involving some major set-piece, at the end of which our heroes, whether the government or the police, carry the day against the odds. Think of Die Hard, when Bruce Willis’s street-smart off-duty police officer defeated a gang of terrorists and left egg on the face of the overbearing FBI. The Hunt for Red October was a similar story. Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) is a CIA analyst specially enlisted to find a defecting Soviet submarine captain (Sean Connery). In the end the crisis passes, and nuclear war is narrowly averted with the help of the strongest Glaswegian accent the Kremlin ever had.
With enough funding and hype behind them, these films can enter the national consciousness even if their very nature suggests they shouldn’t. Point Break, for example, is a deeply silly film: Keanu Reeves goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of surfers, who rob banks while wearing rubber masks of former US Presidents. On paper, the long, lingering shots of Reeves and Patrick Swayze surfing with very little on, not to mention the fact that it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow – a woman (gasp) – ought to have scuttled this film as a vehicle for middle-aged men. By rights, Point Break is the sort of film that bombs on release and ends up a camp classic decades later. But no – it made $83 million and ended up with a notably inferior remake, the blockbuster’s equivalent of an Oscar.
So, why do films like this not seem to have the relevance that they used to? After all, they were popular, and some of them were even good. But in the 21st century, stories like this just aren’t convincing anymore. In today’s world, the threat that people want to see vanquished isn’t limited to international terrorism, or the Soviet Union, or even straightforward armed robbery. The American population – the target audience for these films – have quite enough to worry about.
The comforting narrative that such films promote, where American power is used in the service of the innocent, seems not to resonate so much given the current state of affairs. Take for example the growing ‘militarisation’ of law enforcement to deal with perceived domestic disorder. Last year, 32 people died at the hands of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – the highest number in over two decades. This year, as it takes on more government funding than any other law enforcement body, eight people died in January alone. None of them were armed. In this America, it’s far harder to buy the usual morality tales where the Good Cops fight against the system and everyone goes home happy.
This is arguably exemplified by Kathryn Bigelow’s latest effort, A House of Dynamite. The film centres on a fictional American government and its response to an incoming nuclear attack – but it falls flat in bewildering ways. For one thing, it consists of the same events repeated from three different perspectives, which are so similar that you may as well just watch the opening 45 minutes on repeat. Nor does the baffling conclusion help: everyone panics, Jared Harris’s Secretary of Defense throws himself off a roof, and then… roll credits. No resolution. No decision. A two-hour talking shop, an inexplicable suicide, and by the end of it all we still don’t know what the protagonists have actually settled on doing. You’d think that the imminent nuclear apocalypse would have sharpened their minds a bit.
The problem is the film’s uncertainty about what it actually wants to say. The view it promotes of America’s role in the world – a basically liberal, benevolent force for good – would have been misguided even when people bought into it under Bush and Obama. Two decades of war and its human cost have made that increasingly hard to defend. These days, however, not even the government can be bothered to keep up the façade. It’s little wonder, then, that we get a similar lack of conviction from the studios that make our major films.
