The movies have a long history of ‘How To’ movies including How To Murder Your Wife, How To Steal A Million, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, How To Marry A Millionaire, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini, How To Get Ahead In Advertising, How To Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog, even How To Train Your Dragon. But the riveting new eco-thriller takes it to new levels of ‘How To’ consciousness in How To Blow Up A Pipeline, which takes a literal approach to its title and the source material on which it is based, Andreas Malm’s radical manifesto by the same name.
The author of that book does not go into exact detail on exactly how you could go about blowing up a pipeline, but instead lays out the urgent necessity to do just that act of property destruction, offering up the belief that this good deed of social justice is a moral obligation to destroy Fossil Fuel infrastructure in order to save the planet from ever-threatening climate change. The filmmakers of this edge-of-your-seat movie have been smart enough not to try to film the book, but rather turn it into a heist picture, full of the tropes associated with the genre but mixed with a burning reason and mission to pull off an act of extreme vandalism in the name of humanity and life as we know it.
Directed and written by Daniel Goldhaber along with his co-writers Jordan Sjol and Ariela Barer, the latter who also stars as the titular leader of the group of “eco-terrorists” who band together for this effort, have created a pulse pounding indie movie designed to be as incendiary as it is entertaining. The reason for this film was what they believe is a ticking clock for human life, and thus an urgency to get it made quickly. To do it they enlisted a counterterrorism expert to explain how to build the bombs necessary, pipeline engineers who could fill in other details, and a number of environmental activists as well. The credits only list Technical Advisor as “ANONYMOUS”.
Plotwise this is all ingeniously constructed by bringing together a group of young activists to a small corner of Texas where they plan to blow up a large pipeline, fully aware that if any aspect of the operation goes wrong they could be either dead or in prison for life. But they are a group who clearly have felt they are at the end of their collective rope, protesting time is now in the rear view mirror and it is time to make a more visible statement.
Led by Xocvhitl (Barer), we learn about each of the protagonists through well placed individual flashbacks spread throughout the taut film, effectively giving us the human side of each in order to explain these are not irresponsible eco-terrorists, but people with a reason to hope for a better future for their generation and those that follow. Among them are the romantically involved Rowan (Kristine Froset) and Logan (Lukas Gage of Euphoria and White Lotus fame); locals Michael (Forrest Goodluck) who is the bomb expert, and Dwayne (Jake Weary) who is a good ol’ boy lured into the project after appearing in a rather shallow documentary on the crisis by Shawn (Marcus Scribner); Theo (the wonderful Sasha Lane of American Honey) and her partner Alisha (Jayme Lawson) who are heavily involved with Theo’s dire medical problems adding more to their story; and Joanna (Irene Bedard) and Katie (Olive Jane Lorraine) who round out the main cast of characters.
In the best tradition of the genre , Goldhaber proves to be an adept filmmaker, ratcheting up the suspense at every turn and never losing sight of the human elements and building ecological crisis that keep us engaged. He is helped enormously by the almost verite-style cinematography of Tehillah de Castro all shot on 16MM, the razor sharp editing of Daniel Garber, and the haunting scoring of Gavin Brivik.
This film, starting with its title, is bound to stir controversy, but the fact that it makes its case in such an effective way might give some naysayers pause to try and understand that, in this day and age taking extreme measures can sometimes be the only way out for the good of humanity.
How To Blow Up A Pipeline premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and opens in limited release from NEON on Friday.
TITLE: How To Blow Up A Pipeline
DISTRIBUTOR: NEON
DIRECTOR: Daniel Goldhaber
SCREENWRITERS: Daniel Goldhaber, Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol
CAST: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froset, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, Jake Weary, Irene Bedard, Olive Jane Lorraine
RUNNING TIME: 1 hour and 43 minutes