A House of Dynamite ending leaves the president (Idris Elba) making an unshown choice as a nuclear missile heads toward Chicago . Missile-defense interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, fail, a result described on screen as having “nearly a 50 percent” chance of happening — or, as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker ( Jared Harris ) puts it, “So, it’s a f-cking coin toss?!” The Pentagon’s missile-defense agency “isn’t happy” with that depiction of a system that has cost “more than $50 billion,” while the film is now streaming on Netflix after a limited theatrical run.

Plot recap: three runs at the same 18 minutes

A House of Dynamite unfolds over the same roughly 18-minute window three times, from different decision centers inside the U.S. government. Captain Olivia Walker ( Re

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