“How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is as disturbing and alarming as its very title suggests. Here are a group of young radicals willing to go a lot further for their common sociopolitical belief, and the movie is alternatively compelling and unnerving to watch as closely following how they gather and work together for a serious act of property destruction. Regardless of what do you think about that, the movie holds our attention to the end at least thanks to its competent handling of story and character, and the result is often quite thought-provoking to say the least.

After the opening part introducing its several main characters one by one, the movie succinctly conveys to us what they are going to do sooner or later in the middle of some remote area of Texas. They have been planning to detonate a couple of handmade bombs on a massive pipeline belonging to some big oil company, and they all strongly believe that the success of their mission will eventually bring more public awareness of the ongoing environment pollution problems around the world.

Detachedly sticking to its rather non-judgmental attitude to its main characters, the film illustrates the last steps of their disturbing mission bit by bit. They already secured an abandoned spot where they are going to stay for a while making their handmade bombs, and they also acquired a number of various materials necessary for the quick production of their homemade bombs. The mood among them is mostly casual and playful at first, but it becomes more solemn and serious as time goes by, and things get pretty tense later in the story when one of them has to be very, very, very careful about handling the trickiest element in their handmade bomb.

As they proceed despite a few setbacks, the screenplay by director Daniel Goldhaber and his co-writers Ariela Barer and Jordan Sjol, which is inspired by Andreas Malm’s nonfiction book of the same name, doles out a series of flashback scenes showing the different motives behind each of its main characters. Most of them have been quite angry about those oil companies for each own personal reason, and they all think that they really should do something quite drastic for stopping those oil companies in addition to highlighting the environmental problems a lot more than before. Sure, they could simply choose to do more moderate things such as non-violent public demonstrations, but they firmly believe that it is an urgent time in the need of much more radical activities, and they all seem ready for dedicating themselves all the way to their common cause.

Around the time where they are about to execute the very last step of their mission, we naturally feel more unnerved and uncomfortable than before. While they actually try to reduce its possible collectible damage as much as possible, what they are going to do is basically an act of terror, and it will definitely get them incarcerated for many years if they ever get arrested. Although they are supposedly bonded together in their supposedly noble cause, they cannot help but feel thrilled due to that undeniably inherent excitement of violence and destruction, and some of them are not actually as serious as others in comparison.

Nevertheless, the movie continues to keep us on the edge as skillfully building up more tension on the screen. As it mostly sticks to the limited viewpoint of its main characters, we often brace ourselves for whatever may happen next even while usually observing them from the distance. Its main characters are more or less than broad archetypes, but the main cast members including Sasha Lane and Forrest Goodluck are believable in their respective parts, and their convincing performances never let us overlook what is being at stake for their characters minute by minute.

In the end, everything in the story culminates to the moment the main characters have been waiting for, but the movie firmly holds itself in its restrained attitude even at that narrative point. There is some unexpected suspense from a certain hidden fact involved with one of its main characters, but the movie keeps focusing on the drama unfolded among its main characters as before, and the eventual finale is effective on the whole despite a little plot contrivance, while also provoking more thoughts from us in its very last scene.

The movie is the second feature film from Goldhaber, who previously made a feature debut in “Cam” (2018), a little but chilling online horror film set in the world of webcam pornography. Although “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” looks very different from “Cam” in many ways as a more realistic piece of work, both of them show that Goldhaber is a talented filmmaker who knows how to engage us via good mood and storytelling, and it will be interesting to watch what may come next from him after these two interesting genre films.

In conclusion, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” is often uneasy and uncomfortable to watch at times, but it is worthwhile to watch for its intense storytelling coupled with socially provocative ideas to discuss and talk about, and I admired its commendable technical aspects even while observing it with growing reservation during my viewing. Some of you may be quite bothered at times by its coldly objective attitude to its story materials, but I do not think it actually condones violence and extremism, and I assure you that you will have lots of things to think about after watching this troubling but interesting thriller film.