How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Explosively tense

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.8.23

I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more films like this one, during the next decade.

 

Director Goldhaber’s riveting ecological thriller unfolds with the intensity of a ticking time bomb … which, climate-wise, intentionally echoes the status of Earth these days.

 

Xochitl (Ariela Barer, far left) and four of her colleagues — from left, Alisha (Jayme
Lawson), Theo (Sasha Lane), Shawn (Marcus Scribner) and Dwayne (Jake Weary) —
wait, at a safe distance, for the next phase of their plan to be executed.

Despite sharing its title with Andreas Malm’s 2021 book, the two have nothing in common. Malm’s nonfiction work argues the futility of moral pacifism and expecting change from “the ruling class” — i.e., Big Oil — in favor of more aggressive climate activism in pursuit of environmental justice. (It’s not a “how to” guide akin to William Powell’s notorious 1971 classic, The Anarchist Cookbook.)

Goldhaber, along with co-scripters Ariela Barer and Jordan Sjol, instead have fashioned a non-linear nail-biter very much in the mold of Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 crime thriller, Reservoir Dogs. Both films feature eight primary characters; both intercut the suspensefully developing climax with flashbacks providing key details that explain what draws these folks together.

 

The film opens by following Xochitl (Ariela Barer) as she walks along a city street and, unseen, slashes the tires of a parked SUV; she then slides a one-page manifesto beneath the windshield wipers. She becomes the prime mover behind what takes place soon thereafter.

 

Xochitl grew up in Long Beach, Calif., surrounded by polluting refineries and chemical plants. She became radicalized following the recent death of her mother, during a heat wave likely exacerbated by insufficient air conditioning.

 

Xochitl later joins the others — Shawn (Marcus Scribner), Michael (Forrest Goodluck), Theo (Sasha Lane), Alisha (Jayme Lawson), Logan (Lukas Gage), Rowan (Kristine Froseth) and Dwayne (Jake Weary) — at a deserted cabin in West Texas. They’re prepared for a brief but intense stay, having brought food, supplies … and all the elements required to make two large cylindrical barrel bombs.

 

Their efforts reflect meticulous — and quite clever — planning, along with a rigorous attention to detail. During this initial phase, they work under the guidance of Michael, who lives on a North Dakota reservation. Infuriated by how a nearby refinery has imperiled his people’s land, he taught himself how to make increasingly sophisticated bombs and triggering devices.

 

We eventually learn that Xochitl and Theo grew up together. As children, they’d gaily play in the rain … and then suffer, hours later, from chemical burns on their exposed skin. Theo recently has been handed a death sentence of leukemia, which prompts a sense of can’t-lose fatalism; it also further fuels Xochitl’s wrath. Theo’s girlfriend Alisha, horrified by their behavior, tries to be the voice of reason … but ultimately succumbs to the developing plan.

 

It Follows: A smart, scary little shocker

It Follows (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for disturbing violent and sexual content, graphic nudity and profanity
By Derrick Bang

Young indie filmmaker David Robert Mitchell acknowledges a debt to horror auteurs John Carpenter and George Romero, and it’s easy to see why: Mitchell’s little chiller, It Follows, is suffused with the original Halloween vibe.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

As the full implications of her terrifying dilemma are explained to Jay (Maika Monroe,
center), her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) and former boyfriend Greg (Daniel Zovatto) react with
varying degrees of skepticism. Their doubts won't last long...

Mitchell’s film is unsettling and nervous-making, in the manner of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead and 1978’s Halloween, both of which emphasized atmosphere over the gratuitous gore they were (somewhat unfairly) accused of spawning in subsequent rip-offs. Mitchell understands the distinction; rather than gross out the audience, he’s far more interested in sending us home with a desire to leave the lights on all night.

Not to mention regarding the next sidewalk-strolling stranger with a worried eye.

For the most part, Mitchell plays this card skillfully: This is a seriously disturbing suburban nightmare, and editor Julio Perez IV knows precisely how to pace cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ often disconcerting camera set-ups: a slightly wonky angle here, a worrying overhead shot there, a tense tracking shot taking us to the next scene.

Nor does Mitchell cheat, with cats bursting from darkened closets, or potential victims playing nasty tricks on each other. This narrative is scary not because of in-our-face surprises or frenzied assaults, but because of inexorable, slow-moving doom: the horror of ghastly inevitability.

The setting is a dilapidated neighborhood in suburban Detroit, with homes just distressed enough to suggest residents trying their best to maintain appearances, despite rampant unemployment and fractured families. The occasional empty house signifies a battle lost, just as nearby streets leading toward the city pass entire blocks of shattered structures that look more like the aftermath of the London blitz, than any portion of a modern American metropolis.

The actual time, though, feels ambiguous (and deliberately so, I’m sure). Technology exists, but smart phones aren’t ubiquitous; neither are we far enough back to glimpse LPs and turntables. It’s as if time, like suburban renewal, has skipped this particular enclave, which exists in something of a dreamlike haze.

Which is appropriate, given what’s about to happen.

College-age Jay (Maika Monroe) and her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe) lead a casual lifestyle with their mother, the latter an alcoholic who barely charts her daughters’ comings and goings. Despite this, Jay and Kelly seem to be reasonably well-adjusted, spending most of their time watching old fright flicks with best buds Yara (Olivia Luccardi) and Paul (Keir Gilchrist), who has had an obvious crush on Jay for many years.