Netflix And Chill: How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2023)

While this is only the second film from director Daniel Goldhaber, he's already marked himself out as someone I am always interested. Cam was a fantastic feature debut, and this shows a consistency of form while he moves comfortably from the horror genre into more dramatic, but no less thought-provoking, territory.

In case the title of this film hasn't already made you aware of the content, this is all about a group of people endeavouring to blow up a pipeline. That may seem like a foolhardy mission, and one likely to end in failure, but certain scenes are shown in non-chronological order to illustrate the many extra provisions put in place by activists determined to succeed against overwhelming odds. 

Based on a book by Andreas Malm, adapted for the screen by Goldhaber, Jordan Sjol, and Ariela Barer (who also stars onscreen in a main role), How To Blow Up A Pipeline feels like a film that is very much needed right now. Goldhaber definitely picks a side, which you might say is obvious from the fact that he even made the film at all, but we're at a point in our lives when picking the right side seems like the obviously right thing to do. The planet is burning (sometimes literally), profits are being put ahead of health and safety on a scale that is frankly horrendous, even if that isn't a problem inherent to modern life, and a lot of the news articles and coverage of this situation, and the protesters who have been ramping up their disruption and exposure, tend to frame it as yet another issue in which both sides have valid points to make about the climate change crisis. The data points to only one side being correct, and anyone who wants to deny the catastrophic events of climate change going on around us should do us both a favour now and stop reading. 

Anyway, apologies, back to the film itself. While not exactly lauding the characters as saints, Goldhaber and co. do a fantastic job of using the non-linear narrative to show the motivating factors here, and to make you view their actions as more naive and potentially damaging than they actually are. The clear visuals (from cinematographer Tehillah De Castro, working on only their second feature in this role, I believe, having done numerous music videos and short films) are accompanied by a very good score from Gavin Brivik (who also worked on Cam with Goldhaber), helped by a script that reflects the conviction of our leads while also conveying the attitudes of those who view them as criminals and ignorant pests.

Barer is very good in her role, but I wouldn't feel right singling any one person out from the others. Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, and Jake Weary play the core activists, and each and every one of them has a different, but equally important, part to play in the grand plan. They are also working together for a number of different reasons that all happen to stem from the one big issue, and the performances effortlessly show the different types of relationships within the central group (whether they are lifelong friends or newly connected by the requirements of their mission) and why they are so determined to strike a blow for eco-terrorism.

There's a famous Albert Camus quote that more of us should remember on a daily basis: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." That applies more and more nowadays to people who are striving to correct the balance of a world that is being shifted so far off its axis as to be unrecognisable from what it once was. How To Blow Up A Pipeline reminds us that, despite the headlines and opinion pieces, a lot of people you may view with disrespect and disdain are actually risking a hell of a lot to benefit all of us in the long run. You can apply that to the many people currently taking strike action around the world as easily as you can apply it to the eco-terorrism featured here, and I hope this film succeeds in reframing the mindset of at least a few people who sit down to watch it.

8/10

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