Top 15 Movies of 2023: No. 13 - How to Blow Up a Pipeline

13. How to Blow Up a Pipeline, dir. Daniel Goldhaber

I am not actually saying you should do environmental terrorism.

There is a dangerous allure to How to Blow Up a Pipeline. This movie is willing to dance a lot closer to the flame of revolutionary violence than this author is. And the movie is based on is a non-fiction book by Andreas Malm of the same name, directly advocating sabotage as an effective tool for change. We all would prefer a world where we could just march and vote our way out these problems. However, thehre is a discussion to be had about the limits of non-violent protest. Do Gandhian strategies work when facing uncaring state violence and their radicalized political cheerleaders? Somebody should be running the numbers here, what is the cost-benefits analysis when dealing with climate oblivion? That answer might be gruesome. And even are the liberal bounds of "acceptable" political action so important that we'd be willing to sacrifice our very civilization or species for it? Hell, do those acceptable bounds even exist anymore in 2024, when we've seen the police assassinate activists, state governments charging protestors as domestic terrorists, and using RICO laws against organizers? If you're going to jail for 20 years for just sharing the names of cops who murdered a man, what else do you have to lose? If just daring to speak out is terrorism now, well, might as well go all the way with it.

But again. I'm not saying anybody should blow anything up. I will say the entire US police force should willingly disarm themselves and stop fighting for capitalist masters who are destroying what is ultimately their planet too. Seems like a fair trade for not actually needing a full revolution. But How to Blow Up a Pipeline is all a fantasy. The grim reality is that revolutionary violence is unlikely to work because we're not winning that fight. Once upon a time I'd tell you not to blow things up because the current political deal was a decent one. Now I'm saying don't do it because the bad guys have all the guns and reckless willingness to use them, you're gonna lose.

And if I knew the answer to solving all these problems, I'd be writing that right instead of reviews of movies about superhero movies. So until then, all we have is a movie.

Now How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a very good movie. (Some would argue it was the thirteenth best movie released last year!) How to Blow Up a Pipeline is entirely fiction unlike Malm's essay. It is a thriller set out in the desserts of Texas. The movie fits most in the heist genre, complete with third act reveals of the entire master plan. Only instead of Danny Ocean and his team of Hollywood stars, we have a cast of very young unknowns. And instead of stealing from Vegas, they're stealing back their futures.

How to Blow Up a Pipeine was one of two films last year that I felt captured something authentic about this next generation of young people, Gen Z is what I think we call them now. The other being the horror movie, Talk to Me, I'll discuss that one eventually. There's an awkwardness to these interactions. This is not a movie full of well-timed patter and movie star charm. It's a very diverse collection of young people, both ethnically, sexual orientation, and in personality. They're coming for a dirty, no money sleepover that ends in radical action. Some of them have decades of friendships complete with the baggage of familiarity. Some of them are total strangers. Logan (Lukas Gage) is doing some party boy punk thing and he's off in his own movie. Dwayne (Jake Weary), is an older Texas native fighting for his home, a rugged cowboy through and through. These actors have no chemistry together and they shouldn't, people like these would never fit together. Then there's Michael (Forrest Goodluck), who seems so withdrawn and insular that his character does not seem like he would have much chemistry with anybody. This is a friend group that feels like it has mostly only function before online. They've never had the time to build up an IRL rapport yet. And now they gotta do the opening to Final Fantasy VII, only probably without a robot scorpion.

This is a really good cast, I hope to see these people in more things. Lukas Gage has already having a decent run on Fargo Season 5.

This is a very effective thriller. There's multiple points of failure with the plan. It all feels so dusty and slapdash, there is no way to do a dress rehearsal of this caper. We have moments like Michael quietly telling another kid that he's going to build blasting caps in a shack, and please do not run in unless he sees. This is played so matter-of-fact, not even gallow's humor, just "I might die over there in a minute". There's a big plot point involving trying to lift an extremely heavy barrel, which is tough since these skinny boys and girls do not have the upper body strength. How to Blow Up a Pipeline lets you imagine your unimpressive, untrained, uncharismatic self out on the front lines, making change with fire.