REVIEW: How to Blow Up a Pipeline (dir. Daniel Goldhaber)

WHO’S IN HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE?

Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, Jake Weary, Irene Bedard

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Daniel Goldhaber (director, writer, producer), Ariela Barer (writer, producer), Jordan Sjol (writer), Alex Black, Alex Hughes, Isa Mazzei, Adam Wyatt Tate and David Grove Churchill Viste (producers), Gavin Brivik (composer), Tehillah De Castro (cinematographer), Daniel Garber (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A group of environmental activists unite for an extreme mission…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE?

You may scoff or even cringe at all the extreme things that activist groups like Extinction Rebellion and PETA make headlines for, but whether or not you approve of their actions, they do have a point. They, like a great many of us should be, are concerned with the way that our planet is slowly succumbing to the effects of climate change, after decades of air pollution, water contamination and other man-made problems have put our environment on an all but irreversible collision course with an unsustainable future. It just so happens that these particular groups, including the one that’s front and centre of director Daniel Goldhaber’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, opt for the more drastic of measures in order for as many people as possible to get the message: the world is dying, and we need to do something about it right now.

If that is a message that you’re sick of hearing in eco-friendly movies such as FernGully or Avatar, then even you might be surprised by how gripping and intense How to Blow Up a Pipeline is. Filled with anger, determination and a nail-biting pace, Goldhaber’s film – which he also co-writes the screenplay for with Ariela Barer (also a member of the ensemble cast) and Jordan Sjol – is a tight and timely political thriller that delivers a sympathetic look at extreme activism within the kaleidoscope of an old-fashioned heist movie.

Based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Andreas Malm, the film follows a group of activists – including college dropouts Xochitl (Barer) and Shawn (Marcus Scribner), dying cleaner Theo (Sasha Lane) and her girlfriend Alisha (Jayme Lawson), anti-social explosives expert Michael (Forrest Goodluck), hard-partying couple Logan (Lukas Gage) and Rowan (Kristine Froseth), and conservative family man Dwayne (Jake Weary) – who rendezvous at a remote house in West Texas. Their shared objective is to commit industrial sabotage, by constructing a pair of bombs and use them to blow up a controversial oil pipeline, which would send a powerful message to fossil fuel giants about the vulnerability of their harmful resources.

There is no hyperbole to be found when describing How to Blow Up a Pipeline as an all-out heist flick. Goldhaber’s film is structured like, and at times directly calls back to, the kind of sophisticated bank robbery movies you’d find in the wake of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, except instead of stealing money and other priceless valuables for their own financial gain, they’re disrupting a process that has already stolen plenty from the land and residents around it. There’s a neat immediacy to the way in which Goldhaber and co-writers Barer and Sjol depict the unfolding events leading to whether or not they successfully carry out the titular mission, which as in a lot of the most outstanding heist films build solid, comfortable layers that leave you more and more unnerved about what the ultimate outcome is going to be.

The director cleverly drops the audience right into the thick of it at the very start, slowly revealing characters’ backstories and motivations in flashbacks throughout the movie. This storytelling method builds an immediate foundation of suspense because you only know specific details of their mission through dialogue and actions, and the added character drama also expands on the nail-biting intensity since it gives weight to some questionable actions later on. There are times when you do doubt the intentions of one or two of these people, especially when we see in these flashbacks what prompts some people to suddenly drop everything and team with others that they’ve seemingly never met before. It makes things feel more unpredictable, leaving you with a thought in the back of your mind that at any moment, something more explosive than the actual bombs they’re constructing will blow up their ultimate mission.

The ways in which it is shot, performed, and especially edited are fundamental to the film maintaining its gripping non-linear narrative. Goldhaber, whose previous film was the acclaimed sex-worker psychological thriller Cam, incorporates some grainy, hand-held cinematography (provided by Tehillah De Castro) to scenes that keep the pace moving at a considerable rate, but you can practically feel the characters’ nervous shaking in every motion the camera makes, even when they’re not outwardly displaying signs of anxiety. Meanwhile, the performances from a fiery ensemble add emotional flair that makes many of these characters much more compelling to watch, although some of them are depicted in rather cartoonish ways that often feel at odds with the more grounded style of acting around them, especially the characters played by Lukas Gage and Kristine Froseth, both of whom end up doing fine in the movie but are playing the most typically coked-out and wide-eyed adrenalin junkies who would be among the first to die in a schlocky slasher movie.

Then, there’s the editing, which is honestly quite excellently done by editor Daniel Garber. It leaves you breathless as it cuts back and forth between all these different perspectives, and knows exactly the right frames from which to suddenly shift to something else entirely, even if it’s at a point where it feels like your heart is about to explode. The film is smart with how it introduces character backstory at the right times, as well as some intriguing late reveals which, like the most well thought-out heist plots in movies, suddenly puts certain things into greater perspective and make you want to go back and see how particular people were behaving beforehand, with the knowledge about them that you now have. Garber seamlessly gives the viewer everything it needs to see without overstaying its welcome, and allows for enough breathing room in between some extremely palpitating sequences where you can assess the developing situation while also pondering exactly how certain people will get out of particularly sticky jams.

It’s certainly a film with far-left leaning views, which has the capacity to do more damage than good for the cause, but here they are justified as How to Blow Up a Pipeline revels in the dark psychological consequences of extreme eco-activism, and manages to dig from its ashes a very impressive non-heist heist movie that is expertly crafted and executed.

SO, TO SUM UP…

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is an impressively crafted and executed political thriller that explores eco-activist extremism by way of a compelling heist movie, with strong filmmaking and clever narrative tricks keeping the tense momentum going until its nail-biting conclusion.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is showing in cinemas from Friday 21st April 2023 – click here to find a screening near you!