"How to Blow Up a Pipeline" - Film Review
At the risk of sounding cliché, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is explosive. Based on the nonfiction book of the same name, this film is about an ecological heist by a group of activists who travel to Texas to sabotage the construction of a pipeline. The book, and subsequently the film, critique the idea of “climate fatalism” and the pacifism within the climate movement.
The film is roughly split into two timelines. One details through flashbacks how each of the members of the group arrived at this moment in West Texas. The other shows the preparation that goes into building the explosives and the actual blowing up of the pipeline. Michael (Forrest Goodluck) is a climate activist from North Dakota who teaches himself how to make explosives online. His TikToks garner the attention of Xochitl (Ariela Barer), who is working with Shawn (Marcus Scribner), Theo (Sasha Lane), Alisha (Jayme Lawson), and Dwayne (Jake Weary) to plan an act of ecoterrorism. Logan (Lukas Gage) and Rowan (Kristine Froseth) come across Shawn in a bookstore when they’re browsing for information about building bombs and decide to join the larger group.
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How to Blow Up a Pipeline asks the essential, pertinent question: how does one affect lasting change? On their first night in West Texas, the group gets drunk and debates whether or not they’re terrorists. Most of them agree that they are terrorists, but it’s okay because being labeled a terrorist by the U.S. government puts them in the company of people like Martin Luther King Jr. Besides, it’s not like they’re going to hurt anyone. Not physically at least, but who gets hurt when oil production is disrupted? It’s not the oil companies and their CEOs, it’s the people who buy gas for their cars and are already struggling to make ends meet.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is angry, and rightfully so. This group of young people was born onto a planet that has been run into the ground by generations of corporations that have used and abused natural resources with little to no cost to their bottom line. It’s no wonder they’re calling for change through sabotage. They’re blowing up a pipeline because nothing else has worked. Society has said that voting is the answer, but people are becoming disheartened by the false promises made over and over to them. How to Blow Up a Pipeline is not a guidebook or an instruction manual. It’s a forceful, angry cry begging people to give a damn. The film doesn’t tell the audience exactly what to think, but it does make the viewer look at our circumstances and ask “what do we do now?”
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While some of the writing and characterizations fall a little flat, it’s easy to overlook that in favor of the performances from this talented group of young actors. It’s a Miseducation of Cameron Post reunion for Lane and Goodluck, who once again fully command the screen. Most viewers will recognize Gage from his role in the first season of White Lotus. The talented cast is able to fill in some of the blanks the script leaves for them and elevates this heist film to something that tugs at the heartstrings. It’s the earnestness they give to their characters that provides the film with its much-needed edge.
While the characters experience relatively smooth sailing in terms of their heist, the real tension exists with the audience members. How to Blow Up a Pipeline lingers in the back of the mind of the viewer after the final credits roll. It forces them to question their own impact on the environment and what they want to do about it. It’s hard to say if this film will create any meaningful, lasting change, but it will, without question, force a more urgent dialogue to exist about environmentalism.
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