Adapted from Andreas Malm’s nonfiction book, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire”, in which it is argued that sabotage (property damage) is the most effective form of “local climate activism”, this movie continues in the spirit of its source material, presenting an unapologetic call to direct action.
Synopsis: A small group of young people (some self-proclaimed climate activists, some not) from all across the United States, come together in West Texas with the goal of blowing up an oil pipeline.
Director Daniel Goldhaber drops us right into the action giving his film immediate momentum. Within the first twenty minutes we watch these characters build homemade explosives (Note: no actual bomb making instructions are given in this film) and discuss their plans for the hours ahead. As we witness them prepping for an act which some may call terrorism while others would call self-defense, we are given flashbacks showing how everyone arrived at this point.
Goldhaber along with co-writers Ariela Barer (who also plays the lead character) and Jordan Sjol’s choice to construct this story as a heist-thriller was a stylized stroke of genius, adding an additional layer of tension onto a story containing sky-high stakes from inception.
Very much coming across as a collective passion project, the filmmakers as well as a cast which includes some very engaging performances from the likes of Lukas Gage (The White Lotus), Sasha Lane (American Honey), Jayme Lawson (The Woman King) and Barer herself, take careful consideration in continuously highlighting the revolutionary, communal and anarchist culture and reasoning at the heart of this feature. In the midst of what is a fast-paced film, we are asked to sit with beautiful shots of desert landscape, if only to reaffirm what it’s all for. We get flashbacks that accurately portray how an entire generation could be pushed to these lengths. We even get a pre-title land acknowledgment honoring the native peoples and land that this movie was filmed on. On arrival the collective voice of this film is felt, culminating into something visually and emotionally powerful and creating a sense of solidarity with even the most skeptical viewer.
Final Thought: During said flashback sequences we witness an entire disenfranchised generation surrounded by posters, pop-up social media ads as well as authority figures all suggesting that the only forms of activism that are deemed correct are voting and peaceful protests. And still the characters in this film choose to go the route of non-passive action. “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” asks only one question. What constitutes true and effective activism during a time of immediate crisis? And this question is asked in the most edge-of-your-seat way possible, without sacrificing its “by any means necessary” message. “How To Blow Up a Pipeline” is definitely my kind of heist movie.
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