How To Blow Up A Pipeline is a taught indie eco-thriller with a pulse-pounding score that drives toward structural damage
Daniel Goldhaber's sophomore feature grips with an edgy story, superb cast, tight edit, banging score, and exceptional direction; an indie thriller not to be missed.
How To Blow Up A Pipeline, USA, 2022, 104 mins | Drama, Thriller, Indie | Starring: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, Jake Weary | Writer: Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol, Daniel Goldhaber, Andreas Malm | Director: Daniel Goldhaber | Prod. Company: Chrono | Distributed by NEON
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Pardon me while I pick my jaw off the floor. This expertly structured indie eco-thriller had my pulse pounding through its run time. Having been thoroughly enamoured with Daniel Goldhaber’s first feature Cam (available on Netflix) I was thrilled, quite literally, that his team in this sophomore effort have truly outdone themselves.
The film’s story follows three couples and two individuals from diverging backgrounds who come together to blow up a pipeline in Texas with the goal of disrupting the oil industry by taking actions that will have an impact. Their aim is to drive up the cost of fossil fuel by choking distribution while hoping to inspire others to do the same. The eight are motivated for personal reasons in the name of saving the environment from irreversible climate change due to the overconsumption of fossil fuels.
This group convenes in an abandoned desert shack to create the devices and mix the chemicals required to produce two large drums of explosives. Once complete they must work together to place these massive drums, heavier than four of them can manage, in strategic places in order to carry out their violent destruction of government property. Once accomplished, they must follow a plan to evade the authorities. This is where this film differs from all other thrillers. It doesn’t seek to reinstate the status quo.
In the following excerpt, director Daniel Goldhaber shares his influences with the Financial Times.
“We came up with this notion of Ocean’s 11 but for eco-terrorism on day four of talking about the project,” Goldhaber says. “With the flashbacks we were very explicitly riffing on Reservoir Dogs, which is funny because that movie has a lot of qualities, but being about anything is not really one of them.” Another source of inspiration was Ava DuVernay’s Selma — “a vastly underrated film” — which he admires for its concentration on Martin Luther King Jr as a tactician rather than a preacher. — from John Bleasdale, The Financial Post, Apr. 15, 2023
Director and co-writer Goldhaber and his team expertly craft a unique, edgy, thrilling film with a docu-realist feel. While immersing us in the plot of these eight characters, it makes us culpable as the silent ninth member. Enlisting us in the group’s struggles to execute structural damage as a means to achieve perceptible impact against the climate crisis.
The film relies on an inventive narrative structure that breaks with traditional screenplay rules. Employing overt inspiration from Reservoir Dogs, the film cycles through its characters to introduce backstory, naming chapters after each one. The cuts are made at peak moments of tension, effectively engaging us with a parallel drive of narrative and action, brilliantly achieved by editor Daniel Garber (Cam).
As the film ramps up intrigue through the mundane realities of building explosives, it creates a series of climatic events, such as when self-taught Michael (Forrest Goodluck) struggles to prep a device resulting in an early mishap. The film immediately cuts to his backstory before resolving the outcome of the action. Thereby story energy is maintained through a parallel structure of cutting during peak action and solidly driving the film to its arm-rest-gripping finalé.
The mission’s de facto leader is Xochitl (Zochi) played by Ariela Barer, also the film’s co-producer and co-writer. She foregoes a traditional college education by dropping out to pursue real change through radical means. She meets Shawn, played by a grounded Marcus Scribner, from Balkish, in a study group and the two set out to devise a plan of action. Shawn recruits Logan (Lukas Gage) at the radicalized section of a bookstore. He in turn recruits his girlfriend Rowan (Kristine Froseth), a daddy’s princess type disguised in grunge with a lawyer on speed dial, rebelling against her upper-middle-class upbringing.
The team’s explosive technician is Michael (Forrest Goodluck), a native Indian frustrated with his lack of opportunity on his reservation encroached on by oil workers. He begins teaching himself how to make explosives by creating YouTube videos leading to recruitment from an anonymous source for a “job opportunity.” He brings a steely quietude to his work that is captivating.
Rounding out the couples is Theo (Sasha Lane) and Alisha (Jamey Lawson). Two young same-sex lovers. Suffering harm through environmental exposure to toxic chemicals, Theo has personal motives for going all in. Her girlfriend Alisha provides physical and emotional support beyond the call of romance. The film's script ironically delivers her unjust punishment for her commitment to Theo, testing her love in the harshest form, further affirming the script’s smart character choices.
Completing the Octagon of disruptors is Dwayne (Jake Weary) a young Texas family man disgruntled by the fossil fuel industry who is recruited by Shawn during a documentary film project. He provides much-needed muscle to this group of motivated but scrawny youths.
The film achieves a breathtaking pace through its innovative editing along with a dynamic lens. Its characters are often shown in action mode, moving through environments either obtaining supplies or evading the public eye. This creates a dynamic verve to the film. Something not far from the energy of a Saftie Brother’s film like Good Time.
The cinematography is a feature debut from female lenser Tehillah De Castro, after lengthy experience in shorts and music videos. De Castro employs glorious ‘70s-style zooms and sweeping pans that keep the action dynamic. It also sets the tone of cinema verité, lending this film the feel of docu-realism, achieved by the grainy aesthetic from its 16mm film stock, further adding fly-on-the-wall immersion.
A banging score from Gavin Brivid (Cam) with evocative tinges of Tangerine Dream meets Vangelis provides a hypnotic, pulsing score applied sparingly after a gloriously indulgent opening that I could’ve watched for another 20 minutes.
On the production design front, the titular pipeline is a constructed bit set design that allowed the film crew only one take when it came to realizing the intentions of the film’s title. As well, there is extensive location shooting done in New Mexico, as a stand-in for Texas, that gives the film its gritty realism.
The script is co-written by Ariela Barer, Jordan Sjol, and Goldhaber, based on the academic book by Andreas Malm. It was revealed during its debut at TIFF, in September, that the film was shot in a fever dream from start to final delivery in a total of 19 months. That attack of creativity is all on the screen, adding to a sum greater than its parts.
Distributed by NEON, How to Blow Up a Pipeline boasts a taught, tightly paced indie eco-thriller with a sexy cast, presenting authentic diversity, an edgy story, exceptional editing, a knock-out score, and an innovative structure that builds narrative alongside its thrilling action set-ups. It reaches for a Saftie Brothers’ level of visceral excitement and through its own aesthetics achieves it in a more grounded way. Using 16mm film stock, natural light, location shooting, and docu-realism, it creates a seamless verisimilitude. This for me is its greatest achievement. It so effectively feels like a reference film for anyone looking to inflict structural damage.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline smartly doesn't attempt to be something it’s not. It doesn’t attempt to mimic a slick, big-budget Hollywood thriller. Instead, it veers in the opposite direction and stays grounded in its own grassroots aesthetic with a de-saturated colour palate, a grainy look, and extended formalistic cinematography that gives the viewer a true fly-on-the-wall feel of being the ninth co-conspirator.
The thing that How to Blow Up a Pipeline achieves that elevates it above other thrillers is its relevance to real-life issues that concern viewers at this moment: how to stop the existential threat of climate change. Secondly, it succeeds in subverting the status quo with its well-executed story that dares not to return proceedings to expected structural norms by quite literally blowing things up. It dares to instigate change, as far as any work of fiction can, with a post-climax dénouement unlike any put to screen. the plan is well thought out and executed beyond expectations. This adds excitement by implying action is ready for the taking beyond the fever dream of the screening room.
Highly Recommend.
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Rating
5/5
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