Review of Promised Land (2012) by Ryan B — 27 May 2013

What does one say about a movie that takes such an unapologetically, unambiguous stance against fracking in its first two acts then decides to gummy up the third act with butterflies and unicorns; because when facts and first-person testimony aren't enough, surely a paper-thin love story will carry the day.

Personally, I find it refreshing that a film is brining to light a fifty-plus-year environmental headache that has only recently been brought to the forefront. I also find it refreshing that a film chose to take a stance from the outset and let its views intensify for two well-crafted acts that pitched the agrarian David vs. the corporate Goliath. The final act is where the lights were turned on and the music stopped in our Green-Gaia Mother-Nature love-nest. Why match big corporate land-mongering with eco-friendly reason? Why pit greed versus science? Decadence versus nature? Why even ask the question in the first place when all you are going to do is just overlook the issues so that a whisp of a character can have a change-of-heart? One man's ego ultimately set the tone for the movie; not the possible desecration of our drinking water and the erosion our terra firma. Gus Van Sant sacrificed the humanity of the issue for the humanity of a character we were never going to remember the name of.

The issue at hand is too important to be brushed aside when the chips are down and Matt Damon really really wants to get laid.

I ultimately came away from the movie with less energy than I originally had on the issue of fracking; that's unfortunately a testament to writing and the directing. Political movies are always the best when both sides go for broke. Politics, like fracking, is an ugly process. "Promised Land" tried to wrap with a bow an issue that the majority of the population knows little to nothing about. The issue was raised, then quickly side-stepped, and ultimately made irrelevant.