Movies
‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ is a Tense and Pulsating Eco-Thriller
But it lacks a poetic flourish
From the outset, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is an exhilarating rush. In many ways its greatest quality is its pacing, where its constant sense of momentum means there are rarely lulls in intensity throughout the film’s runtime. It follows a group of eight people disenfranchised by environmental issues — specifically, the harmful effects of oil refineries. Their solution is to commit an act of eco-terrorism by blowing up a pipeline (though this last part should have been fairly obvious from the movie’s title).
How to Blow Up a Pipeline takes very little time to throw us into the action, quickly giving us a glimpse of the movie’s principal characters before they meet up in a remote area in Texas to execute their plan. We only get a brief snapshot into each of their lives, yet not only are these moments interesting to watch, it’s immediately clear that all of these characters are very different. There wasn’t a single moment where any of them felt interchangeable, and on the whole their characterisation and performances gave off the impression that these were authentic people you could find in real life (though Alisha [Jayme Lawson] was somewhat underwritten in this regard).
Each quick excerpt from these character’s lives in the movie’s introduction adds another layer to the story, where it’s as if we’re watching a puzzle piece unfold alongside an eco-thriller. As we creep towards the group’s plan coming to fruition, there are some lowkey interactions between characters that let us learn more about their relationships and how they feel about one another. Remarkably, these quieter moments in How to Blow Up a Pipeline never undermine the film’s tension.
There were times when I found it difficult to make sense of what this movie was going for, as it simultaneously leans into being a genre film while depicting wide-spanning social issues. At first I speculated that Michael (Forrest Goodluck), the loner of the group — whose antisocial behaviour and nihilistic attitude were concerning even amongst a group of extremists — was secretly more malicious than we’re made to initially believe.
I soon realised that I was unfairly boxing this character into what I would have expected from a typical genre film. Instead, the character is, well, strange, and antisocial, and more than a little disturbed. But that’s not entirely unreflective of reality, especially amongst a group of people so angry at the state of the world that they think peaceful protest is as meaningless as a shout into the void.
Perhaps this difficulty to connect with a character like Michael comes in the way of how his motivations are explored, and, to a larger extent, how each character’s motivation is gradually uncovered over the course of the movie. Interspersed between the group’s pain-staking execution of this elaborate plan are their individual backstories, where we learn why they feel driven to carry out this radical act. I appreciate that How to Blow Up a Pipeline wants to give us an insight into how these characters think, especially when their dialogue exchanges in the present day are quite lacklustre and unrevealing in this regard.
In one exchange, Alisha brings up the potential consequences of the group’s actions, sounding as if she’s genuinely never talked about or even considered them before. In a flashback scene, Xochitl (Ariela Barer) and Theo (Sasha Lane) engage in an incredibly mundane, empty conversation, just before Xochitl explains her cause and convinces her friend to join it. Unfortunately, this specific part of the interaction isn’t actually shown, so we just get a preamble that largely consists of these two characters throwing iterations of ‘shit sucks’ and ‘fuck that’ at one another.
Without its flashback scenes How to Blow Up a Pipeline would feel hollow at its centre, but that doesn’t change the fact that their inclusion in the story is poorly handled. So as not to compromise on the movie’s impressive pacing, the flashbacks are conveyed with the exact same level of momentum as the rest of the experience. But here we’re not watching characters risking their future, and perhaps even their lives, to pull off a daring stunt that could go wrong in a million different ways. Instead, we’re watching innocence begin to die, as this diverse group slowly becomes united by a common cause: that the world is rotting, and they must do everything in their power to stop this process.
If one is to demonstrate how eight different characters come to that conclusion, a significant portion of time is required to convey that change. But not only is that not the case here, these intercutting flashbacks are extremely short and fast-paced. Some of these characters are essentially strangers who meet by happenstance, while others just so happen to be close friends of one another. It all feels too convenient, too lazy.
As I was watching How to Blow Up a Pipeline, I couldn’t help but compare these flashback scenes to the opening section of Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory. Powers’ novel, about trees and nature, beautifully and painstakingly explores the tragic loss of innocence in its characters, where it gradually dawns on each of them that their only hope of salvaging the natural world is through radical action. I don’t claim to know how this film could have pulled off something as ambitious and lengthy as this in a feature-length movie, especially when it has so many other narrative elements going on. Nevertheless, the way these ideas and backgrounds are conveyed in the flashback portions of How to Blow Up a Pipeline creates a void in the way of emotional resonance.
Almost all of these characters have been personally affected by the existence of oil refineries, but the tragedy of these moments is trampled on when it’s treated like exposition. For example, Theo is slowly dying, with her condition being influenced by these harmful polluters of our environment, which sounds like a compelling character motivation on its face. But we learn of this through a single line of dialogue, then quickly skip forward to her becoming radicalised — which occurs during a portion of a conversation we don’t even hear.
If this were a bunch of scientific jargon that the writers needed to get out of the way so they could tunnel to the heart of this story, I wouldn’t have any issues with this approach. In fact, it’s pretty cleverly depicted exposition given its brevity.
But in some ways this is the very heart of the movie, especially when How to Blow Up a Pipeline ends up being as much a call-to-action as it is a story-driven narrative. Michael’s background is especially weak in this sense, where our introduction to the character is learning that he’s been spending his days standing around an oil refinery, as he asks one of the workers a barrage of questions before touching his clothes and getting involved in a brief scuffle. There’s something oddly weightless about this moment, which is an extreme example of how empty these flashback sequences feel.
What’s missing in the film is a sense of passion, of deep urgency, which is stated but never convincingly shown. What we do get is a mostly well-paced thriller with a social conscience, which is enough to make for an engaging, worthwhile experience. Even if my problems with the film might appear to overshadow this point, I really did have a blast watching How to Blow Up a Pipeline throughout much of its duration. It’s easy to feel caught up in these characters’ enthusiasm and bravery, and I was worried for them across every step of this journey.
The film’s visual style remains understated when it needs to be, but it brilliantly articulates the tension and stakes when it is pronounced. That said, there are some misfires. Towards the end of the film there are constant cutaways between the characters that are too frequent to feel essential: the same can be said of the harsh zoom-ins on their faces. But on the whole director Daniel Goldhaber has done a fantastic job at visually crafting a story that feels like it has serious consequences while still being a lot of fun to watch.
And though its acting does a lot of the heavy lifting in this regard, with all eight performers bringing their A-Game to the ensemble piece, there are some really great present-day conversations in How to Blow Up a Pipeline that round out these characters and their dynamics. So if I sound quite negative about this experience, that’s only because I wished the film cared more about these characters’ pasts and futures.
Unfortunately, the movie’s ending is as rushed as its flashback scenes, and is relegated to even lesser importance by being interspersed throughout the film’s end credits. It becomes clear pretty quickly why this is, with How to Blow Up a Pipeline being more concerned with inspiring future change than where these characters end up. But even if this was intended as a propaganda piece to turn people into climate activists, or to get them to engage in radicalism, this is first and foremost a story, and it’s a shame that a mostly great one loses sight of that as it reaches the finish line.
Make no mistake, this is a thrilling watch. Just don’t expect much of a conversation starter out of it. If that’s what you’re looking for, I would recommend The Overstory, or Kelly Reichardt’s slower, more contemplative environmental thriller Night Moves.
