‘A House of Dynamite’ review: Kathryn Bigelow takes us to Defcon 1

By Adam Graham, The Detroit News

A nuclear missile is headed toward America — toward the Midwest, specifically — and there’s only 19 minutes to impact.

That’s the insanely urgent doomsday scenario set up in director Kathryn Bigelow’s electrifying “A House of Dynamite,” a hyper tense, tightly laced thriller that says all the preparations and supposed safety nets our leaders have in place might not make a lick of difference if a nuke is hurtling through the air in our direction and there’s only minutes to go until impact.

Bigelow, the crackerjack filmmaker behind “Zero Dark Thirty” and 2017’s “Detroit,” takes us inside the fluorescent-lit control centers and situation rooms as officials learn of the strike and quickly work to gather every piece of intel they can. What is protocol? How eff