How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)

"We tried to combine these raw, gritty oil drum recordings with these distorted and pulsing synth sounds... This is the first time I’ve traveled to a set to sample and record actual oil drums, pipes, and found sounds to create a score... We had a drumstick with a super bouncy ball attached to the [oil drum], and we dragged it across the metal pipes to create ominous, resonate drones."

Gavin Brivik on producing the film's opening track 'Why I Destroyed Your Property'

how to blow up a pipeline (2022)

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)

Dir. Daniel Goldhaber

Folks…I just watched How To Blow Up A Pipeline and whew, I have THOUGHTS and EMOTIONS. Please if you can watch this film (it’s on Netflix, Hulu and Sky!)

how to blow up a pipeline (daniel goldhaber, 2022)

Deidra & Laney Rob A Train (2017) dir. Sydney Freeland

How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2022) dir. Daniel Goldhaber

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

directed by Daniel Goldhaber, 2022

CAM (2018) DIR. DANIEL GOLDHABER.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Daniel Goldhaber, 2022)

also How to Blow Up a Pipeline by Dabiel Goldhaber was spectacular! However, I already know some people are going to be annoyingly dense and stupid about it because I just witnessed it in real life at the film festival. A woman started screaming that real activists care about the planet and don't cause environmental damage when like. that's adressed in the film??? it argues how legal channels of activism and seeking change within the system that causes the problems in the first place is not viable, drastic measures are no longer drastic when you consider the powers that you're up against. more specifically, how property destruction is a valid tactic in seeking environmental justice in climate activism. like there's whole sequences where the characters debate on how to sabotage the oil industry without causing environmental damage or damage to locals but I guess some people can't touch a slightly radical idea that might not be officially sanctioned by society without screaming in a public theater lol. anyways, great film though and some truly good performances.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023, dir. Daniel Goldhaber) - review by Rookie-Critic

My full-length review this week was going to be over Renfield, but I saw this last night and felt like talking about it more (plus Renfield is very cut-and-dry: good, not great. Could have used more Nicolas Cage because his performance was awesome). Also, I felt like I was getting in the habit of only doing full-lengthers for the big blockbuster releases of the week and not giving love to the indie films.

I was very excited to see this film because it looked like a well-made eco-thriller that would show the complicated nature of fighting back against a corrupt system built to punish those trying to enact change. I will say that it is very well-made. The low-budget, sometimes handheld nature of the camerawork did wonders for the overall vibe of the film and the script, from a story standpoint, was very solid and had my anxiety high from beginning to end. The score was also something I picked up on immediately as being both really good instrumental music and really good at servicing the film's intensity. Another aspect that really works in the film's favor is a stunning and quite remarkable cast of up-and-comers, including Ariela Barer (Marvel's Runaways), Marcus Scribner (black-ish/Grown-ish), Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant), Sasha Lane (American Honey), Jayme Lawson (Till & The Woman King), Jake Weary (Animal Kingdom), Lukas Gage (Assassination Nation), and Kristine Froseth (Looking for Alaska). I just went ahead and named all of them because they all deliver such fantastic performances with what they were given. Special mention should specifically go to Goodluck, though, for making me very interested in a character the film doesn't give you a ton of information about.

The part that bugs me about Pipeline is that, despite a solid script and an ensemble cast that is both diverse and extremely talented, the film doesn't critically analyze it's morality or do much to call into question if our characters are truly doing the right thing or not. Of course, there are throwaway lines here and there about how what they're doing is an act of terrorism, and one character in particular brings up more than once the ethical grey-area of what they're doing, but she is the lone voice in a crowd of bullheaded individuals that believe what they're doing is altruistically the right thing to do. It makes a less-than-baseline attempt at holding a mirror up to the ensemble and treats them as heroes when, at best, they're anti-heroes. Well-intentioned anti-heroes, but anti-heroes all the same.

I think one of the biggest proponents of this is the film's character writing. We are given flashbacks throughout the film providing a little backstory for all of our main cast of characters, which, in and of itself, is a great device, but it is used aimlessly and doesn't provide anything close to the kind of insight into our characters' motivations that I was looking for. We seem them all from a bird's-eye-view, getting more of a template of a person than something more fully realized. We see the triggering event that pushed some of them over the edge, but we don't get the context, the build-up, the lifetime of constant reminders that their-world is dying and there is nothing truly substantial that they can do about it. In the case of some of the characters we don't even really get an inciting moment, merely just a footnote onto the film that explains how they got entangled in their current situation. It's character backstory that moves the plot forward, but doesn't necessarily move our characters forward, and that's Pipeline's biggest detriment. It cares more about sending a very black-and-white, blunt-force-trauma message to the audience through plot beats as opposed to a very thought-provoking, nuanced message about complex morality and the pitfalls of well-intentioned extremism through its characters. There are whispers of the latter, moments where the film opens itself up for you to ascribe your own biases to a character and sympathize with their logic, but it is all very surface level.

It's an expertly crafted film with a lot of great things going for it, but it takes a much less effective soap-box approach to a story that would have been way more well-suited to a humanistic one. If you take the good with the bad, all things considered, it is very entertaining. There's something to be said that there are multiple moments when the theater audibly gasped and even more moments where I was literally, physically on the edge of my seat. It was good enough to make me interested in reading the book (something I hardly ever do anymore) and watching director Daniel Goldhaber's first film, Cam. I'll be keeping an eye out for future projects from him, for sure.

Score: 7/10

Currently only in theaters.

How to Blow Up A Pipleline (dir. Daniel Goldhaber) x TIFF 2022.

[It] adapts Swedish academic Andreas Malm’s non-fiction climate activist book about ecological sabotage into a gripping contemporary heist thriller. Set in the vast oil fields of West Texas, the film’s radical message of driving active change through destruction and property damage frames an intriguing narrative hook of justifiable eco-terrorism for the greater good to save humanity from ourselves.

Is there still time to save the planet? Eco-thriller How To Blow Up A Pipeline is showing from tomorrow.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

How to Blow Up a Pipeline    [trailer]

A crew of environmental activists plot a daring plan to disrupt an oil pipeline.

A tense thriller. Not exactly a documentary, but still mostly no-nonsense, it feels very real.

As for the story. It's very timely, and a difficult topic. It's clear that humanity is unwilling to change course in a timely manner to avoid that large parts of the global population will increasingly suffer from the effects caused by global warming in the not too distant future. So how far should you be allowed to go to draw attention?