How to Blow Up a Pipeline (film)

Theo and Xochitl, lifelong friends from Long Beach, California, a heavily polluted city with multiple oil refineries, witness the effects of climate change when Xochitl's mother dies during a heat wave. Disillusioned by the slow progress of their campus divestment campaign, Xochitl expresses interest in more radical environmental action to Theo, who is diagnosed with leukemia. They recruit Theo's girlfriend Alisha for support and gather a group of five strangers with their own motivations: Dwayne, who becomes radicalized against an oil company due to abuse of eminent domain laws threatening his family's homestead; Shawn, a documentary crew member who meets Xochitl during college protests advocating for divestment; Michael, a Native American from a North Dakota reservation with a history of challenging oil rig workers; and Rowan and Logan, a reckless couple. Together, they form a plan to blow up an oil pipeline in West Texas.

• Ariela Barer as Xochitl
• Kristine Froseth as Rowan
• Lukas Gage as Logan
• Forrest Goodluck as Michael
• Sasha Lane as Theo
• Jayme Lawson as Alisha
• Marcus Scribner as Shawn
• Jake Weary as Dwayne
• Irene Bedard as Joanna

According to director and producer Goldhaber, the production of the film spanned 19 months, from conception to completion and premiere. Goldhaber worked alongside a team of seven credited producers.[8]

Goldhaber collaborated with Jordan Sjol and actor Ariela Barer to co-write the screenplay, completing it within four months after two months of research.[8] Casting meetings commenced even before the script was finalized. Despite initial challenges in securing financial backing, Goldhaber and Barer successfully obtained support from a financier acquainted with Goldhaber during the Cannes Film Festival.[9]

Filming spanned 22 days, primarily in New Mexico, with a key sequence filmed in North Dakota on the reservation where actor Forest Goodluck's family lived.[9] Additional scenes were shot in California. The filmmakers opted for 16 mm film to capture the desired quality in daylight exterior scenes, and to give the footage a more cinematic feel. The shooting ratio averaged around 21 or 22 to one.[8]

Extensive conversations with individuals involved in direct action were held to ensure accuracy and authenticity. The team also collaborated with a government contractor specializing in counterterrorism for realistic depictions of bomb-making scenes, while certain steps were omitted for dramatic purposes. The film's explosion sequence combined practical effects with CGI augmentation. A structure made of industrial cardboard and wood was detonated to create the desired explosive and fire effects. Post-production involved six months of editing.[9]

Ariela Barer attends a 2023 screening of the film in Brooklyn, New York

The film premiered in the Platform Prize program at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2022.[10][11] A few days after its premiere, Neon acquired the North American distribution rights, intending to release it theatrically.[12][13] It was released in the United States on April 7, 2023,[7] and set to be released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on April 21.[14] Gavin Brivik wrote its score.[15]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 94%, based on 140 critic reviews with an average rating of 7.8/10. Its critical consensus reads, "An explosive adaptation of Andreas Malm's treatise, How to Blow Up a Pipeline delivers a high-stakes eco-thriller ignited by riveting and complex antiheroes."[16] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 77 out of 100, based on 28 reviews indicating "generally favourable reviews".[17]

In a review for The New York Times, Peter C. Baker called the film a "cultural landmark" for its uniquely sympathetic portrayal of ecoterrorism.[18] In another review for the newspaper, Ben Kenigsberg wrote that the film “has a degree of suspense and efficiency that are becoming all too rare in the mainstream.” However, he criticized it for packaging itself as having a deeper message while avoiding grappling with the characters' ideologies. He also questioned the placement of flashbacks, which he noted seem to serve primarily as plot twists, and suggested that the film's clean plotting and sympathetic motives undermine its confrontational goals.[19]

In his review for RogerEbert.com, Matt Zoller Seitz gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising it as "one of the most original American thrillers in years." Seitz commends the film for its thought-provoking nature and its exploration of the moral and psychological challenges faced by individuals involved in underground activist movements. He notes that the film's presentation of its central characters, a group of young American self-described "terrorists," is likely to make it controversial. Seitz highlights the film's ability to connect various systemic problems and lauds its meticulous approach in shedding light on these issues. He also commends the performances of the cast, particularly Jayme Lawson and Forrest Goodluck.[20] Film critic Brian Tallerico praised How to Blow Up a Pipeline as a unique and intense film that breaks away from the polished mainstream. He highlighted the personal passion of director Daniel Goldhaber, who brings a gritty texture and a sense of urgency to the film. Tallerico noted that the film effectively transforms the concept of climate change into a thrilling heist narrative, and that he believed it would resonate with younger viewers and contribute to the ongoing climate change conversation.[21]

According to the Washington City Paper, the film is not an instruction manual but "a way to illuminate genuine moral objections".[22] A pair of reviews in The Guardian by Wendy Ide and Peter Bradshaw each gave the film four out of five stars; Ide wrote that the film functions as both a "nervy thriller" and "a lightning rod for the mounting anger of climate-conscious audiences",[15] while Bradshaw found it "fiercely watchable".[14]

• How to Blow Up a Pipeline at IMDb