Pentagon memo disputes A House of Dynamite's missile-defense realism

The Pentagon on October 16 circulated an internal memo challenging the accuracy of Kathryn Bigelow’s new Netflix film A House of Dynamite, saying the movie’s portrayal of U.S. missile defenses understates the real-world reliability of current interceptors. The film, which premiered on Netflix last Friday, dramatizes a nuclear crisis in which U.S. missile defenses fail to stop an incoming warhead aimed at Chicago, a scenario the Missile Defense Agency said does not reflect testing outcomes.

The agency’s memo said that multibillion-dollar hit-to-kill interceptors have shown a 100 percent success rate in testing for more than a decade, and that the film’s depiction of missed intercepts departs from results observed in controlled tests. The memo was circulated to give agency leaders situational awareness ahead of conversations in which the movie’s subject might arise, and it acknowledged that filmmakers may take creative liberties for dramatic effect.

Filmmakers pushed back. Screenwriter Noah Oppenheim told a television interviewer, "We respectfully disagree," and said he and Bigelow relied on extensive research and interviews with experts, including technical advisers who have...