REVIEW: How to Blow Up a Pipeline, an ethical heist film

The world is burning. Corporations say they’re going green, and governments say they’re working to combat greenhouse gas emissions. But year after year, new reports come out showing the damage to our climate is growing. The world is becoming unsafe for humans to live on, and nobody’s sure exactly what to do. This all led to the release of a non-fiction book by Andreas Malm, a Swedish ecology professor. That book argued that climate activism needed to implement sabotage in order to make any difference in the fight against environmental injustice. That book is called How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

Daniel Goldhaber (who previously directed Cam) read this book and decided to make a film adaptation of it in the spirit of There Will Be Blood (creating a fictitious narrative based on a non-fiction book). This film, which premiered at TIFF last year,  tells the tale of eight people across the United States who come together in West Texas with one goal: sabotage for environmental justice. They’re going to blow up a pipeline in a way that won’t physically hurt anyone, but will disrupt the market in a way that does hurt the corporations profiting from oil. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is an intensely minimal heist film with the highest stakes possible. A thumping score by Gavin Brivik highlights the tension.

The film is structured around the heist, frequently changing timelines to show the steps needed to execute the heist and the characters’ motivations for doing so. The film is is structured in such a way that it’s hard to imagine anybody watching it coming out on the side of the pipeline. It’s methodical, yet humanist in its design. Where it truly succeeds is in its adaptation, the creation of the fictitious narrative. The eight main characters are played young excellent actors such as Sasha Lane (from Loki), Marcus Scribner (from Black-ish) and Jake Weary (from Animal Kingdom). All the characters have believable motivations and reasons for why they choose to participate in sabotage, from Lane growing up in a town ruined by chemical plants to Weary trying to prevent the government from taking his family’s home away.

I had the good fortune of speaking with one of the actors, Forrest Goodluck (from Blood Quantum). He tells me that was an exciting film for himself and all of the other cast to work on, calling it a “heist movie with a sort of political message, but then also there’s aspects of it that we could play around with and have fun with.” He tells me all the actors got to contribute to their characters stories, including his as a Native American man in North Dakota struggling with the world’s lack of action against environmental injustice.

He adds that it was a fun shoot for them to work on, especially working with his old friend Sasha Lane (who he had acted with in the Miseducation of Cameron Post). And what was most fun about the film was the challenges involved. “Day to day, everything would go wrong simultaneously… and we’re shooting on real locations out in like the backyards of New Mexico.” Much like the characters, the actors and crew had a goal in mind. To make an entertaining and informative film, and in that they succeeded.

Watching this film is opening yourself up to the possibility that those in charge aren’t making things better. If those in charge won’t make things better, this film shows a world in which Generation Z does. They step up and do what needs to be done. It’s a small step, but change is made up of many small steps. It’s a depressing, yet simultaneously inspiring watch

In many ways, this film plays like an 80s John Hughes movie with incredibly serious stakes. An unlikely group of young adults come together, and learn about their differences and similarities all in pursuit of the same goal. Goldhaber and crew have crafted this intricate, yet simple narrative about a topic that appears complicated. But as many of the characters say, it’s much more simple than all of that. It’s a matter of fighting for something they believe in because nobody else will. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a mixture of the the Italian Job, the Breakfast Club, and Night Moves.

It’s a powerful film, one that will be considered controversial by many and essential by many others. Watching this film is to open yourself up to a depressing reality, but with a bitter optimism. A hope that things may be better, a hope for youth. How to Blow Up a Pipeline gets a 4/5, and you can listen to my interview with Forrest Goodluck below.