Promised Land

Its easy to see Promised Land just as the trailers promise.Namely as a film about the environmental hazards of drilling for natural gas using a process called fracking ( hydraulic fracturing), that is not as harmless as its made out to be, and placing this neatly in a decaying small town in the agricultural heartland of America. Promised Land works at that level too, but more importantly it is the study of its protagonist Steve Butler, played by Matt Damon.Matt Damon and his co writers John Krasinski and Dave Eggers, have written a role which is ostensibly a corporate salesman for big oil but could easily have been a Wall Street trader coming to terms with the troubling reality of the financial world.

Steve Butler is the study of a man seriously out of depth, he is doing a job that he thought he was good at, but suddenly his modus operandi seems childish and outdated.Matt Damon does not reveal his moral core throughout, he continues to wear the amour of his flannel shirts, that he buys to blend in, before he gets to the job of converting the townspeople to sell out their future.Perhaps he has risen to his level of incompetence, a classic example of the Peter Principle.But in the hands of Gus Van Sant its not just about professionalism.He befriends a charming single woman in a bar, in a town like this its a miracle she exists.He turns his charm on her just like he does with his audience. His favorite trick is walking upto the front yard of a house and asking the kid who may be playing there,"Are you the owner of this place?'When the confused kid says, "No", he asks,"Then how come you are doing all the hard work?".That's a slam dunk.

But Steve this time has competition, a man more handsome, more charming and apparently smarter arrives out of nowhere, with a bunch of damning photographs which graphically illustrate the nightmare that the residents are about to wreck on themselves.He not only steals the town but also the girl.How Steve will deal with this double whammy is the neat resolution of the film.The resolution exists because filmmaking is a costly enterprise, but as we learn through the course of this film, reality is far more complicated than that.

He has a partner, Sue, played by Frances McDormand, who is the perfect choice for this role.She is tough and business-like and we see her cringe more than once as Steve turns into a bigger and bigger wreck.She is a travelling hockey mom, her sons baseball game is her only silver lining.She manages to remain sane because of this emotional anchor which Steve does not have.The reality of the environment debate is complicated and it needs a scientist to decode, played here by Hal Holbrook, who is able to do a more comprehensive job of using Google to figure it all out.And yet as he and Steve concur,ultimately its all about our consumption pattern that we are not willing to discuss, let alone change.The sad eyes of Halbrook see no hope, only sparks of revolt, which he provides with his research to the residents.

We start off in Promised Land by looking at Jason Bourne and then forget all about him.Perhaps this is part of what Damon was aiming for, to become an actor again rather than a one man action movie franchise.He succeeds to a very large extent.Francis McDormand is surely an American national treasure and her performance here is reason enough to see this film.The cinematography is deliberately fuzzy but maybe the goal is to make a pretty landscape look ugly and grainy, photographing the lush landscape and its wonderful actors in sharp focus would have made it a pretty picture, detracting from its weary tone.

The oeuvre of Gus Van Sant is full of pieces that study the American landscape from an intimate leftwing lens.From Milk which looked at a gay rights activist to Elephant, which quietly observed the Columbine shootings with a docudrama approach, his films try to decode the American ethos. Along the way he makes brave choices like reshooting Psycho shot by shot, a decision for which he has been much vilified, but his reasons for doing so as a serious director were commendable.Cinema is better off with experiments like those, never mind if they fail, or don't make people happy.

Promised Land remarkably reminds one of Peter Bagdanovich's classic 1971 film The Last Picture Show in its study of the collapse of the American dream.That film perhaps sets the stage for this one, all the young people have gone away to the city and those that remain must make frightening life choices.Its easy to see the poverty struck town as a microcosm of America and the title as a commentary on the shattered "Great American Dream" (surprisingly not trademarked yet).Mr Van Sant delivers a richly textures film that neatly sidesteps the environment question and places individual choices at its centre.

Published on my blog mostlycinema.com

I really enjoyed this film. Acting is superb (obviously, look at the cast), beautifully shot, engaging confident storytelling. Very will scripted by Krasinski and Damon.

People seem a bit split on this movie, I think that partly has to do with a 'hot button' subject, but I don't think the film overly politicized the issue, in fact it did a good job of not making it to preachy, and showed that it is a very complicated issue.

Also the movie isn't an action film, it's a drama, that is nonetheless thoroughly engaging. Highly recommend. would give it 10/10 but third act issues lowered the score for me just a bit. Still a great watch!

"I'm not selling them natural gas. I'm selling them the only way they have to get back." Steve Butler (Damon) is a salesman working for Global, a natural gas company. Him and his partner travel to a small farming community to buy up property rights in order to drill. When an objection by a local teacher causes an enviormentalist activist to show up things get harder for Steve. This is a movie where the trailer doesn't do it justice. I wanted to see it based off the cast but it looked a little boring. While the movie is a little slow moving it is in no way boring. The writing and acting is very good and the "bad guy" that Damon plays really makes you feel for him and kind of root for him instead of the "good guy". While the movie does get a little political towards the end this is not a typical "enviromental/save the Earth" type movie. This movie makes you able to feel both sides of the argument and almost forces you to pick a side. I expected this to be boring with good acting going in. I got sucked in pretty fast and ended up really liking this much more then I thought I would. Overall, much better then expected and I highly recommend this. I give it an A.

Let's get this out of the way up front: I'm about as anti-fracking as they come. You've heard of tree huggers? Well, I'm a bedrock hugger. So you'd think to me this movie would be 100% environmental porn. Surprisingly, on that level my reaction was somewhat meh. We'll get to that in the 4th paragraph, but let's talk about the movie on a strictly artistic/entertainment level first.

Excellent. Great acting, good thoughtful pace without becoming boring (in fact it's amazing how interesting they made a subject which puts most people to sleep), nice artistic cinematography, and a truly original story. The story is about a good guy "Steve" (Matt Damon) who works for the natural gas company intent on convincing small rural townsfolk to lease their land to them so they can drill. Steve believes he & his company are doing the right thing by bringing money to the depressed rural economy, a no brainer. But things get complicated when he encounters resistance from some townsfolk and a mysterious environmentalist who isn't exactly fighting fair.

If you caught the clever spin, you see that the film flips the character stereotypes on us. The big corporation is the honest protagonist while the anti-fracking whistleblower is the shady character. I really liked that novel approach. But here's how it sort of falls short regarding the social message it seeks to deliver....

The movie barely gets into the actual debate over fracking (which, in a nutshell, is the practice of "drilling" by shooting water & chemicals deep into the ground so it knocks stuff loose and brings it to the surface. Sorta like fishing by dumping Ajax into a pond so the fish jump up into your boat). While the movie does mention this in 1 scene, that scene was played a bit over the top, with the mystery environmentalist lighting a desk on fire and threatening to incinerate a turtle to make his point. In other words you might miss what he's saying as you are marveling at how absurd he looks. The rest of the movie handles the debate in a similarly oblique way, focusing more on the cat-and-mouse drama between Steve and the environmentalist rather than the actual talking points. In that respect, this film didn't necessarily have to be about fracking; it could've been about a poker game, or a beauty contest, or anything where the goal is to be more convincing than your opponent.

Ultimately, the showdown comes to a clever climax and resolution where a speech wraps things up for us, and if this were an 80s teencom it would certainly deserve a slow clap, but at the same time it may leave you wondering "so wait... uh why is fracking bad?"

If you already know, or if you don't really care, then no problem. Without a doubt the movie is entertaining and worth your time. But if you were expecting a compelling exposé of why fracking is bad, aside from its rather unfortunate name, then you may end up disappointed and/or running to Google to get an education.

Contrasting this movie against classics like "The China Syndrome" (nuclear power) or "The Towering Inferno" (unethical building practices) where we are shown exactly what can go wrong, "Promised Land" doesn't take us there. It just tells us, through innuendo, that we should be afraid of fracking. That was an incredible missed opportunity for an otherwise powerful film.

Matt Damon, once again functioning in the dual role of scriptwriter and main actor, reengages with director Gus van Sant (previous joint ventures include "Gerry" and the Oscar-winning "Good Will Hunting") in search of another fruitful cooperative endeavour . Based on a concept written by Dave Eggers and co-scripted by co-star John Krasinski, "Promised Land" is an extremely competent piece of story-telling, however laboured by a somewhat unconvincing fictionalisation of the matter at hand.

A touchy environmental issue has been presented in one of Gus van Sant's most down-to-earth and standard features to date, where the devilish fracking industry is the focus of a well-meant, if mishitting, effort. Steve Butler (Matt Damon) works as a consultant for the gas industry, roaming the countryside purchasing up land destined for exploitation by deep drilling. Together with the rigid Sue Thompson (Frances McDormand) they form an effective team, effortlessly buying up land in the idyllic small towns, strained by lack of cash, thus falling into financial despair. The gas shelves offer an option for easy cash - leasing the land and energy resources hidden deep in its bowels, thus bringing promise for better days. When Butler and Thompson are sent by their employer Global Crosspower Solutions to a cash-starved Pennsylvania farming community, the land seems ripe for the picking. Nonetheless the dark side of the industry slowly filters through, when the ecological soundness of the natural gas fracking process is brought into question by Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), a physics professor emeritus teaching at a local school. Troubles slowly start arising, coupled by the arrival of environmentalist Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), who initiates a grassroots campaign against fracking. The two soon start to compete for victory, not only amongst the community, but also with regards to the heart of small-town beauty Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt).

Given the continuing discussion regarding the business, who on the outside wants to appear clean, whilst simultaneously sweeping all burning faucets, poisoned wells and dead livestock under the social radar, "Promised Land" could have been an important voice in the discussion, at least forcibly bringing the issue into the public eye. However the restraint shown in presenting the controversies behind fracking seem to be a missed opportunity, as the movie slowly drifts away from the core issue towards an order of melodrama and bickering between two sides of the debate. Not much however is done to present the controversy itself: Is fracking really a threat? Or are we just supposed to decide by ourselves through google after watching the movie? Naturally "Promised Land" isn't a documentary, hence the factual layer is nowhere as dedicated and impacting as in the groundbreaking "Gas Land". Nonetheless the lack of contextualisation is evident, offering too much space for any side to decide for themselves. Much focus is offered towards the question of whether the impoverished farm-owners should just take the money and renege their environmental fears. When someone's livelihood is at stake is it moral and right to ignore ecology? Somewhere amongst this nuanced approach to the issue, the question lingers: is there any reason to really fret regarding fracking or is this whole discussion just pointless? A well researched scene featuring Hal Halbrook would have done the movie a world of good...

Thankfully the script by Damon and Kosinski refrains from painting a cosy picture of right or wrong, presenting the local town life as a simple debate amongst immediate gratification and the perspectives of losses in the future. However the somewhat idyllic presentation of small town life causes the poignancy level of the question to drop, a far cry from the doom and gloom on offer in "Gas Land", the desperation lingering in people's eyes. Damon himself is well cast as a small-town boy fully dedicated to the company and the riches it offers, as a positive alternative. A far cry from a dastardly cooperative mug, his much more level-headed character is a welcome change, which avoids demonizing the people behind the problems. This occasionally helps to strengthen the rivalry for people's hearts, showing that the issue isn't an easy issue to resolve as either side would want to portray. Nonetheless this ambiguity also works against the movie, offering many points of view, but failing to truly show an in-depth focus on any, instead swaggering away into standard dramatic contrivances and a somewhat unwelcome twist at the end, which unravels much of the prior arguments, instead leaving focus on issues, which shouldn't really be the point of the movie. To some extent the characters and their tribulations override the integral story, somewhat collapsing the concept.