How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2022) Dir: Daniel Goldhaber
- Ridley Coote
- Sep 23
- 2 min read
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This film, directed by Daniel Goldhaber, and based on the 2021 book by Andreas Malm of the same name, has the kind of name that gets you on a government watchlist when you search it up on the internet. I can vaguely remember some positive acclaim for it when it came out, but have since seen and heard very little about it. I wanted to see how good it was, and if it was worth remembering after I watched it. As a person with fairly punk and progressive ideologies, I was hoping this would be a firm and defiant anti-capitalist film.
Considering the nature of its source material, it should come as no surprise that this was, as I had hoped, a highly political and environmentally charged thriller. I really liked how well the film explored the variety of ways that people can become radicalised against capitalism and its malevolent greed. It felt grounded, it felt real, and it felt personal. In many ways, the film resembles the growing anger and will for change that has built up in people in the last two decades in particular. The planet is dying and people don't want to sit and watch it happen.
The film had very consistent pacing, which, alongside a brilliant sense of underlying tension that enveloped every scene, made for a truly riveting film. Most of the characters and their motivations were well defined, which in turn made the story easy to follow. The message of the narrative was clear and strong, and its execution just as much, for the most part. I loved that the film was built entirely around the plan and its execution - it kept it feeling intense and interesting. Even the flashback sequences were fitted nicely into the rest of the film, and there wasn't the need for any painful exposition dumps.
With a film like this, it was less about the performance of an individual as it was a collective effort from a solid ensemble cast. In spite of that, a few names stood out a little more to me than othets; Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Forrest Goodluck and Jayme Lawson. These four felt the most memorable and consistent, although the likes of Lukas Gage, Sasha Lane, Marcus Scribner, and Jake Weary, were all worth mentioning as well for their various roles in the film.
Overall, I thought this was a very good and very easy to watch thriller, which got its point across without overly preaching or spoonfeeding its messaging. I think it's a film a lot more people should watch, at the very least because it's well-made, but also because it makes a lot of important points about the state of the world, and the greed of those who rule it. I also feel very compelled to read the book now, which can only be a good thing.
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