How to Blow Up a Pipeline

It may not have the most appealing title and there's a conspicuous lack of 'stars' but this independently made 'eco-thriller' may be the best thriller you will see this year. Basically you could say it does what it says on the tin as a group of 'eco-warriors', (good performances from a largely unknown cast), set out to sabotage the pipeline of the title. Think of it as a heist performed by eager, well-intentioned amateurs but with the pipeline standing in for the bank vault while director Daniel Goldhaber displays the same ability as the young John Sayles for eliciting first-rate work from his fresh young cast and for giving the film the feel of a documentary.

It's also genuinely exciting; for starters these guys are dealing with high explosives that could go off at any time with deadly results and secondly, whether or not you agree with their agenda, they remain a sundry bunch of criminals packing weapons and perhaps capable of anything. A neat ending, too, that isn't as predictable as you might think. All in all, one worth seeking out.

Recently, when a bunch of "Just Stop Oil" activists disturbed a World Snooker Championship game and, as per Gen-Z-climate-activist tradition, threw food all over the tables and sat themselves down in their anti-oil garments, a Twitter user quipped: "These types of climate protests are so detrimental to raising actual awareness and widespread support that if it ever came out that these people were paid for by gas and coal-owning billionaires I'd probably believe it".

Now, I don't know if the companies behind the well-made but questionable How to Blow Up a Pipeline have any such dubious ties (neither the production companies nor the distributor, Neon, have any deals with Big Oil that I could find). But man, what a time to do a psyop to make the enemy look deranged when said enemy will agree with the assessment and be proud of it!

Here is a movie loosely based on a book -- whose name-similarity to some kinda Dark Web instruction manual isn't accidental -- that speaks straight-out about how violence is a necessity for "climate justice"; essentially how destruction is correct so long as it's (purportedly) in the name of the right cause. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked. It was racism in 2020, it's climate change now; I just thought it was gonna be less mask-off terror apologia and more trying to rationalize throwing soup at art to make fossil fuels go away.

Then again, the book predates all those incidents and this manner of disruption was fairly commonplace in Sweden, the author's homeland, before the big vandalism stories of recent UK and US news. Perhaps the real surprise is that it came out after the Nord Stream incident -- an as-yet-unresolved case (of POSSIBLE eco-terrorism) that damaged decidedly more than "replaceable property" (what many radicals will tell you is the only real victim, even on a bad day). Not that this ever really stopped at "property", especially among the new wave of post-Thunberg soup Zoomers.

I sometimes ask: If, for example, a patient dies inside an ambulance as a result of road-blocking climate protestors -- as has literally happened in, you guessed it, Sweden a few months ago -- is that person deemed a necessary sacrifice for the utopia? After all, what's one death vs. The doomsday you've been told you're preventing? Do you redirect the trolley to kill one human when there are 8 billion hypothetical humans on the other track?

I accuse people of pussyfooting around this query, but I realize they've been answering me through actions for some time. When activists were convicted for the incident in Sweden, there were additional manifestations -- not in the name of the person that died, but the ones that got arrested.

Will a film like this exacerbate things? Hopefully not. It's being praised by the Usual Journalists for portraying the "terrorists" (sometimes in quotes, sometimes not) in a sympathetic light, but I didn't read them as outright unblemished. Someone will go "This was my Joker" but someone always does.

Up until this film I had never heard of the book How to Blow Up a Pipeline nor of it's author, Andreas Malm but this Swedish writer and associate professor has been preaching the 'joys' of environmentalists taking direct action to property for awhile. Is this fictional depiction of his writing a good summary of Malm's thoughts? It would appear so.

Of course, that doesn't make the movie good. What does make it worth a watch is how the planning and execution of this act of violence (or self defense) is portrayed. The director, Daniel Goldhaber, has given us a very decent thriller. Yes, the characters are not terribly deep but if you enjoy watching smart people figure out a heist, well in this case an explosion, then this is the film for you. Also, to have a film made in America that is basically pro-terror attack 22 years after 9/11 makes for fascinating viewing. Who would have ever guessed this day would ever come?

Should this film get any push back I have no doubt you'll hear some denounce the picture by saying brute force is not the answer. The problem with that argument is that cinema has been celebrating violence against people (See any action movie, cop film or western) for years so why not one about violence against oil pipelines?

It's a tense movie with some good moments, interesting cinematography, and an even better score. However, it didn't live up to the high expectations.

Even I, who agree with the main message, found it to be too one-sided. Other perspectives are not heard, there are no arguments, no pros and cons (when there are - and only about the method - a conclusion is quickly reached). I like movies that make me reflect and not movies that feed me the message with a spoon, forcing me to accept that. The structure is interesting, although cutting the tension doesn't always have the desired effect (which I believe is the same as a cliffhanger on tv shows). Lastly, the characters are too linear, too victimized. We know almost nothing about what sets them apart, we are only left with their motivations - all with direct causes - to do what they want to do. Ok, but didn't make me care a lot about them.

It's an ok, flawed, somewhat interesting little thriller with an important message, but that's all it is.

It was a well crafted film from start to finish by Goldhaber, fuelled by a young and talented cast, especially in Lucas Gage's performance. The choice of flashbacks were sensibly done, something I'd normally avoid saying. It was a cheeky move executed confidently by Goldhaber using peak points of tension to cut back and learn about the characters. It worked, and strengthened the audience's connection with each character. The film had a hard time finding a consistent level of maturity. It plays more as a YA novel wanting to be like Mission Impossible. The stakes were high, but it lacked some unexpected sacrifice that would come with an emotionally charged team, driven by revenge to attack the oil industry in Texas. The reason it still worked is because the cast was so youthfully motivated and their energy kept things grounded in plausibility.

This cast and crew did a spectacular job in creating a sense of a blockbuster with a festival film. And though my phone screen was found to be shattered after the screening was over at TIFF, I enjoyed the film. Looking forward to more from the filmmakers.