Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2014

Co-writer Matt Damon and Frances McDormand are a pair of ace gas-company salespeople trolling a small, economic disaster of a farm town for natural gas leases. For some, they represent financial rescue. But a flinty high school science teacher (Hal Holbrook) urges caution. Then the dreaded ecologist “presence” arrives (co-writer John Krasinski), and the hearts-and-minds game is afoot. For a while, Gus Van Sant’s examination of the controversial natural gas extraction method known as fracking seems like an even-handed, thought-provoking effort to understand the complex issue. Is fracking our path to reduced dependence on imported oil? Or is it an ecological nightmare that poisons the land? But then, why not sell gas rights under your land when you’ll lose the whole farm to foreclosure if you don’t? And so on. Then the filmmakers blow all this skillfully forged ambiguity that lent the movie a certain tension. There’s a crucial reveal, minds are changed, and it becomes what you feared it might be: a message movie. In a way, it’s more effective as a lesson on Machiavellian corporate tactics than it is as an anti-fracking screed. (107 min)