Directed by Kathryn Bigelow for Netflix — out in select theaters now, and streaming on the service beginning October 24 — the film is divided into three acts that follow government workers, military officials, and finally the president himself (played by Idris Elba) in the roughly 18 minutes that pass between the detection of a nuclear missile launch over the Pacific and its arrival in Chicago. With the minutes ticking down, the military chief of the US Strategic Command advocates for a preemptive counterstrike, even though the US doesn’t know who fired the missile or why, and even though doing so would mean the 10 million Americans who will die in the Chicago strike will only be the first to perish. It’s not possible for us to know all of this in just the 18 minutes the intercontinental ballistic missile allows, just as it’s not possible for the president to make a meaningfully informed decision on how to respond in that time.
Author: Shayna Korol
Published at: 2025-10-14 21:57:50
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