Through most of Promised Land, I was reminded of Matt Damon’s breakout film, the underwhelming Rainmaker. This cannot have been the producer’s intention — the last time Matt Damon co-wrote and starred in a Gus Van Sant film, the result was Good Will Hunting. This result is not Good Will Hunting. It’s not even bad Will Hunting. It’s a corporate exposé piece which inspires less investigation into clean burning energy and more investigation into the movie where Matt Damon states, “I’m just wonderin’ … do you even remember when you first sold out?”
Of course, Matt’s not really a sell out; he wrote this film. He just cast himself as the corporate sellout. Oooooh. That’s different. I suppose.
Promised Land, written by co-stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski (and Dave Eggers), is a standard attack on corporate greed. The repeated theme shown in many, many pictures of dead cows is that natural gas ain’t as clean as we like to pretend. And yet the most telling verbiage comes in the form of corporate shill Steve Butler (Damon) himself saying, “if you’re not for natural gas, then you’re for coal and oil,” both of which are much worse. And he’s right. The only alternatives beyond are either developing something cleaner or no energy usage at all. Nobody wants that conversation. Sorry. Nobody with money wants that conversation.
Geez, even this review is boring. This is what Promised Land does – it sucks you in to an overlooked concern and then hammers the same point into the chemically saturated ground again and again and again. Matt represents big gas. He and Frances McDormand do a great job collecting farmer souls until a town hall in which Hal Holbrook reminds us that he’s still alive. Then Dustin Noble (Krasinski) shows up peddling big environment. I like John Krasinski, but if he were my rival, I think I’d spend most of my time punching the smarm out of his face. Forsaking the repeated face punching option, Matt looks defeated. Often. I have never seen Damon look so defeated in film form. He spends over an hour playing Mopeyball in Mopeyland. Awww, no one wants to play with the money I offer. Awww.
I can’t really think of a worse career move for MopeyMatt. Environmental Crusaderman is what he gave up the Bourne films for? And on the plot side — from the perspective of the clientele, is the extraction of natural gas any different than the extraction of crude oil? It’s not like you’re drilling a cross-stitch pattern, are you? Don’t you just drill one or two holes and drink his milkshake? Do you need the whole community to approve? I guarantee you don’t need this film.
♪You made them cry
With your alibi
Ain’t that a shale
Your plan mustn’t fail
Ain’t that a shale
Working with Mohs scale♫
Rated R, 106 Minutes
D: Gus Van Sant
W: Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Dave Eggers
Genre: Manipulation
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Microfarmers, if there are any left in this country.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: National energy policy engineers
♪Parody inspired by “Ain’t That a Shame”
