At a remote military outpost, an unidentified incoming missile is detected, setting in motion an escalating series of actions and reactions across all levels of the United States government. With her trademark dynamic kineticism, Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days, Point Break) puts the viewer in the centre of a crisis in which decisions must be made in limited time, based on incomplete and evolving information and untested protocols. Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim construct a frighteningly plausible scenario in which a multitude of dilemmas—practical and personal, bureaucratic and existential—overlap in real time and at a mounting rate. The film’s prismatic structure allows for a broad-scale thriller that entangles intimate dramas with an unfolding world-historic event.
