‘House of Dynamite’ Writer Tells Pentagon Claiming Inaccuracies: “We Respectfully Disagree”

House of Dynamite screenwriter Noah Oppenheim has answered the Pentagon after it contended his Netflix thriller, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, inaccurately portrays how U.S. defense systems react to an incoming nuclear missile attack.

“We respectfully disagree,” Oppenheim told MSNBC’s The Weekend program after the Pentagon in an Oct. 16 internal memo argued U.S. missile interceptors “have displayed a 100 percent accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade”.

While conceding he and Bigelow did not speak to the Pentagon during the making of House of Dynamite, they did extensive research before concluding “unfortunately our missile defense system is highly imperfect, and if the Pentagon wants to have a conversation about improving it or what the next step might be in keeping all of us safer, that’s exactly the conversation we want to have. But what we show in the movie is accurate,” Oppenheim told the MSNBC show.

He added the Pentagon cited a scene in the movie where “our mid-course missile intercept system fails, that we fail to knock down the incoming missile.” In the memo, the Pentagon argued the U.S. real world missile intercept system is more accurate than what is shown in the Netflix thriller.

“I’m not a missile defense expert. However, I did talk to many missile defense experts who were all on the record,” Oppenheim added.

Bigelow’s nail-biter centers on a nuclear crisis that tracks from different perspectives and different endings the 18 minutes it takes for ground-based interceptor missiles launched from the U.S. to reach Chicago. The audience is left to question does the incoming bomb get intercepted before a projected impact?

“Watching moments of fear pass across the faces of these disciplined, highly trained officials, or listening in as a young military officer calls his mother, becomes progressively more heart-wrenching,” David Rooney wrote in his review of House of Dynamite for The Hollywood Reporter.

Oppenheim said he welcomed the Pentagon weighing in on the Netflix thriller: “I’m so glad the Pentagon watched, or is watching and is paying attention to it, because this is exactly the conversation we want to have.”