Author’s Note: This author understands that RBC Royal Bank is a lead sponsor of TIFF, where How to Blow Up a Pipeline had its world premiere; and, as RBC is Canada’s biggest financier in fossil fuels, it is imperative to acknowledge the irrevocable damage to the global climate that RBC has helped facilitate. Please note that this author only supports this film and the talent involved with making it, not the institutions that financially endorse the film’s primary subject matter.

I’m a simple man. There are certain tropes, set pieces, plot devices that serve as skeleton keys to my movie loving heart. River boats, for example, make for my favorite setting. When someone tours a house, I love that too. Often, it’s the classic “getting the team together” montage that warms my heart the most. Daniel Goldhaber used that skeleton key on me early in his newest film, How to Blow Up a Pipeline.

The film - which is about exactly what you think it’s about - opens with a crew assembling in west Texas. The characters come from all walks of life: an indigenous man from North Dakota, a Californian with inoperable Leukemia, a couple of bohemian junkies bouncing from one fix to the next. They share only one moniker: ecoterrorist. They’ve gathered together, their mission obvious, in hopes of igniting something bigger than themselves. 

Based on Andreas Malm’s book of the same name, How to Blow Up a Pipeline plays less like the average page-to-screen adaptation, and more like a docu-thriller, one that’s constantly putting matches to gasoline puddles. Equal parts a call to action as it is a heist movie, How to Blow Up a Pipeline boasts a tightly constructed screenplay that never lets you out of its grip doing its runtime, before pushing you forward, championing its cause after the credits roll. 

Although the titular events take place in west Texas, the plot is interwoven with vignettes of each character’s backstory, making for a comprehensive understanding of not just each character, but the myriad ways that climate change impacts our day to day lives. Where most films fail with sporadic flashbacks, How to Blow Up a Pipeline leans into this mode of storytelling. It infuses what could otherwise be mistaken for a Safdie brother’s film with empathy and sentimentality, while never losing its pace.

These flashbacks are successful, in large part, due to the performances at their centers. Independent film darlings Jack Weary (It Follows) and Sasha Lane (American Honey) bring a familiar grounded presence to the movie, but it’s the star turns of Forrest Goodluck and Ariela Barer (who also produced and co-wrote the film) who stand out amongst the cast. Barer’s character is fierce, demonstrative, a leader; while Goodluck’s character is more the isolated, brooding, forgotten-to-history-martyr type. Together they’re a strange pairing, but one that exemplifies the range that the climate fight takes. It may just take a TikTok star and an unspoken pyromaniac to wage a war on oil giants, as How to Blow Up a Pipeline so starkly demonstrates.

What this leaves us with is a white-knuckle thriller, a playbook meticulously crafted for ecoterrorists, and a damn great movie. It has something for everyone (unless you’re an oil tycoon), and a message that everyone needs so desperately to hear (especially if you’re an oil tycoon). How to Blow Up a Pipeline may be the biggest surprise of the Toronto International Film Festival, but it’s certainly the most important film of the festival. It’s just that simple.

Acting and Casting - 2 | Visual Effects and Editing - 2 | Story and Message - 2 | Entertainment Value - 2 | Music Score and Soundtrack - 1 | Reviewer’s Preference - 2 | What does this mean?