‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ Review: Climate Activism Gets Explosive in a Taut Indie Drama
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic Even among many who’ve grasped the scientific evidence, or experienced escalating weather extremes, climate change remains an abstraction for most — something too large and vague to trigger urgent emotional response.
Not so the fictive activists in “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” inspired by Andreas Malm’s nonfiction tome of the same name. Though diverse in background and motivations, the eight individuals here drawn together to attack an oil conduit in Texas share a sense that the planetary environmental crisis is immediate, and the time for gently chiding protests past.
Whether their actions constitute “eco-terrorism” and whether violence of any kind is ever justifiable in the service of progress are questions Daniel Goldhaber’s sophomore feature duly grapples with.
Still, its degree of moral self-examination is unlikely to appease climate deniers, who’ll likely decry the film (if they notice it at all) as a recruitment poster for aspiring saboteurs.
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