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Corporate sales partners Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) arrive in a...
Promised Land (2013)
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| Director: | |
| Cast: | |
| Released: | Friday, January 4, 2013 |
| Length: | 103 minutes |
| Studio: | Focus Features |
| Genre: | Drama/Suspense |
| Rating: |  Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. |
Synopsis
Corporate sales partners Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) arrive in a small town to secure drilling rights for a natural-gas company. They believe that the economic decline has done their work for them and that the townspeople will happily accept whatever offer they make. However, they don't consider the objections of a respected schoolteacher (Hal Holbrook) and the leader (John Krasinski) of a grassroots campaign against the company's objective.
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Promised Land Theatrical Review
As the advance guard of a major energy conglomerate, newly promoted Steve (Damon) and his astringent partner Sue (Frances McDormand) persuade beleaguered farmers to sell drilling rights to land held by their families for generations. A one-time Iowa farm boy, Steve knows that a flannel work shirt and fake folksy charm can soften the most doubtful mark; he also knows that too much information about the company's gas extraction methods — otherwise known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — can derail his sales pitch.
But Steve, as he keeps telling the locals, isn't a bad guy. He may dispense as many bribes as homilies, but he's a true believer who sees himself more as savior than salesman. To him, natural gas offers salvation from a disappearing way of life and hard cash for landowners who can barely feed their families. And since farms are doomed, those who cling to their agricultural heritage are practicing "delusional self-mythology," an argument that many familiar with the economics of today's farming may see as not entirely far-fetched.
Gliding on Danny Elfman's ethereal score and cinematographer Linus Sandgren's rural vistas, Promised Land isn't a howl of anger against corporate callousness. Channeling its environmental concerns through the character of a quietly eloquent retired scientist (Hal Holbrook), the film maintains a homey, humorous tone that only occasionally crackles with anger or disappointment. Most of the pleasure derives from Damon and McDormand's prickly but pragmatic partnership and, later, Krasinski's breezy cockiness as Dustin Noble, an environmental activist who woos the locals with sob stories and karaoke. Watching Dustin murder Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" in front of a bar full of applauding farmers, Steve visibly deflates.
And this, if anything, is the film's Achilles' heel. Damon may not be entirely comfortable playing the corporate villain (however ambivalent), and he makes Steve surprisingly pouty and easily overwhelmed. Luckily he's surrounded by excellent supporting players, including Rosemarie DeWitt as a local schoolteacher and man magnet, and Titus Welliver as a brooding shopkeeper with modest designs on Sue. By the time we realize we're watching a standard transformation story that's a little clichéd and overly self-serving, Van Sant's steady hand and unobtrusive style have almost convinced us otherwise.
This isn't a film that will set you and your friends apart from one another over the pros and cons of fracking, though it may spark some healthy debate. So if you're in the market for a film with a little thought behind it, it's worth checking out Promised Land.
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1/17/2013 2:22 PM EDT
Corporate sales partners Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) arrive in a...
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