How To Blow Up A Pipeline review: a propulsive climate crisis thriller
This eco-terrorism nail biter featuring an excellent ensemble cast is an electrifying work of activist filmmaking
Film Reviews Jayme Lawson
How To Blow Up A Pipeline starts like a heist movie. Set to rhythmic music, a team of activists in West Texas separately go about their tasks, then gather together. Slowly and deliberately, each character and what they do is revealed. There’s an emphasis on work and preparation. Each character is moving, doing something, or taking care of someone. Obviously, they are getting together to perform the act that’s in the movie’s title. The “why” is held back for the time being. Propulsive and with a hint of mystery, these early scenes set the film up like a thriller.
However, How To Blow Up A Pipeline has many ideas on its mind. This is a story—urgent and of this moment in time—about the climate crisis, the personal toll it takes on a few people, and the drastic measures they employ to try and make a meaningful impact. The film is based on the 2021 book by Andreas Malm and the movie’s credits present the filmmakers as a team. This collective includes Daniel Goldhaber (writer, director, producer), Ariela Barer (actor, writer, producer), Jordan Sjol (writer, executive producer), and Daniel Garber (editor). That sense of teamwork bleeds into the very narrative. In flashbacks, each character’s story comes to light as to why and when they became a climate activist. They are a motley crew and would never have come together if not for the common cause. There’s the righteous college students (Barer and Marcus Scribner), the Christian landowner (Jake Weary), and the Native American activist (Forrest Goodluck), the latter two having been harmed by the government. There’s the cancer patient (Sasha Lane) and her empathetic girlfriend (Jayme Lawson) and two drifters (Lukas Gage and Kristine Froseth) whose story remains vague until much later in the film. Not every motive and relationship is fully fleshed out immediately and that restraint provides a sense of continuous mystery. The audience is pulled in to try and figure out all the connections.
The screenplay starts by presenting its characters in broad strokes. They are naive but knowledgeable and bold and reckless with the excitement and folly of youth. As the story advances, more nuance and insight is added. As with any team of people working together, tensions and frayed emotions begin to bubble up. There’s a palpable spark, whether the relationship is romantic or fraternal, and the actors deliver. Lawson and Lane in particular invest their interactions with passion; whenever they are in the frame together, their relationship feels fully realized even if they’re barely talking to each other. Barer and Schriber depict a different kind of love; one that comes from intensely sharing a common goal. When they look at each other or hug, their commitment and the importance of this endeavor to them is fully apparent. Also intense is Weary, upon whose face the fatigue of a long fight is easily readable.
Some of the characters’ personal reasons for becoming an activist feel tenuous and a tad too neat. When they talk amongst themselves, trying to justify what they are doing, they sound less like real people and more like mouthpieces. When they’re working together, their drive and ambition is understandable. The silences and the glances work better than the dialogue thanks to an ensemble that seamlessly plays off each other.
The filmmaking in How To Blow Up A Pipeline is of the no-frills type. Despite the combustive title, this is work that doesn’t call attention to itself. The camerawork and the editing are efficient and to the point, with no particularly beautiful tableaus or fancy jump cuts. This restraint fits the story; after all, the last thing these activists want is to call attention to themselves.
How To Blow Up A Pipeline plays like a taut thriller that tells an unusual story. Its strength lies in making a topical issue palatable and highly watchable. It offers no judgment and no easy answers yet it firmly engenders empathy for its characters’ actions. This is a climate crisis story told in a matter-of-fact way that would be dispiriting if it wasn’t for its ever-present hopeful tone.
21 Comments
Saw this earlier in the year, and as this review alludes to, it felt a mile wide and an inch deep. A lot of the reviews I’ve read (not this one) also seem to be complementing the politics of the film more than what’s on screen, which just provides easy grist for the right side of the aisle’s “woke mob” mill. Anyway, for a knottier and equally propulsive take on a similar subject, I can’t recommend Bonello’s Nocturama from 2016 highly enough.
Is this like Fast Food Nation except instead of trying to free the cows, they try to blow them up?
I think they just start feeding them Gas-X. It’s a very compelling story.
You know why other countries ban movies depicting deviant behavior like this? Because people, that’s why. You don’t need assholes getting ideas. Especially when they are already attacking energy stations, water treatment plants and other utilities.
And the problem would be…?
1) Death and destruction of property and workers lives in and around the pad. Fires that can spread and destroy more property.
2) Leakage from the resulting explosion would create a bigger environmental disaster than just flaring and normal operations.
3) The ground water and nearby biome would never recover. Forcing residents to flee or relocate in the area. This would cost tax payers billions.
4) The economy of the state and location would be severely affected and ripple out to infrastructure funding and state coffers would take a massive hit. This means many of the services rendered from the operator leasing the lands in that state would grind to a halt. This also means higher taxes to cover the costs of loss.
5) Road repairs, fuel distribution and factories would then follow suit as they benefit from petroleum products.
6) The resulting terrosit at would then embolden other splinter groups, from eco terrorists to right-wing nationalists to attack other facilites.
7) Increased security would be a normal occurence in America as another 9/11 would be essentially happening. Movement in the US and travel would be limited.
8) Countries who purchase the pipeline products would impose sanctions on the US as the supply of petroleum products would take a considerable loss after the destruction. Imports would be limited and food supplies would follow suit as those countries refuse to do business with the US since they have no fuel to produce goods.
9) New harsher laws would be established setting precedence against environmental rights groups. The government will have many on watch lists or detained even if they had no part in the attack. Theses actions would allow corporations more powers in deregulation and usurping environmental protections
10) The aftermath of the destruction would echoe among the populous with negative optics strengthening oil production and the industry by making them and the killed workers martyrs.
Life isn’t a video game or a movie. There are repercussions that ripple out from choices that affect other people and the future.
I absolutely agree that we should get off fossil fuels, but blowing up pipelines isn’t going to do it. The problem with eco-terrorism is the same problem with terrorism in general — they alienate far more potential supporters to your cause than the few who are impressed by it.
The distinction between terrorist and freedom fighter is mostly a subjective one and a matter of the perspective of the person making the value judgement.
Yes, but I’m not sure that’s relevant here. That is referring to cases of rebel armies trying to overthrow a government being called “terrorists” by the government in charge while being supported by a large faction of the populace as patriots. I don’t think people blowing up pipelines or throwing soup at van Gogh paintings are in this category — I don’t think they want to overthrow the government but to get people into environmentalism — the question is if it is productive.
That’s why it’s better to just make a movie where you pretend to be radical and suffer none of the consequences
Blowing up a pipeline isn’t going to reduce demand for fossil fuels, it will just re-route transport of crude, natural gas or whatever onto trains and trucks plus create massive environmental damage itself. So you get a less efficient mode of transport, make a mess, piss off the general public, and in no way solve your problem.
Blowing up a pipeline increases the costs of operating oil pipelines — you now have to invest in securing them against terrorism — which raises the cost of producing oil, which raises the cost of oil, which forces people to find alternatives. It’s what functioning governments would do with taxes to encourage investment in alternative energy, if we still had functioning governments.
Price elasticity of demand for oil is effectively zero. People don’t find alternatives, they eat the increase in the cost of fuel and forego other expenditures. If this were a natural gas pipeline, it would drive up the cost of electricity since 40% of U.S. power is generated by natural gas plants.And this is just the economic argument. Fucking up the environment with a massive explosion and spill brings its own set of serious moral issues – especially if done on a scale that could maybe, eventually, impact long-term commodity prices and demand.
The IRA did quite well for themselves by shifting away from human/military targets to infrastructure and economic centers.
To a degree. But they ultimately didn’t win and gave up (yes, splinter groups like the so-called “Real IRA” still exist but they are tiny and even more ineffectual) and Ireland is still divided. Of course it’s possible that it might be united soon, not out of violence or nationalism but simple economics given the insanity that is Brexit.
“Didn’t win and gave up” is a very simplistic view of what happened.
“Didn’t win, and pivoted to basic-bitch organised crime” is more accurate.
It’s like the Downing street declaration doesn’t exist for you guys. Amazing.
Been curious about this one, but not as curious as I am about the inevitable moral-panic shitstorm it’s going to inspire. I’m kinda surprised that Danielle Smith hasn’t made it a cornerstone of her electoral platform yet.
If that woman becomes out next Premier, I’m moving. This province of hillbillies is a goddamn embarrassment
The 2013 movie Night Moves, with Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning, was a well-made, tense look at eco-terrorism. Attempt on a dam rather than a pipeline, but it was very interesting. That sort of home-grown activism can be very compelling. (In movies, not in real life, at least to me!)