Sick Product of a Sick System

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a soft hitting environmental film. Steve Butler (Matt Damon) represents Global which wants to buy the gas drilling rights to a town. He is from a farming community, but can't drive a stick shift. He is also ill informed of the dangers of fracking. His partner is Sue (Frances McDormand) a working mom who tries to parent from Skype. In the town of Miller's Falls, they meet resistance from Frank (Hal Holbrook) the local science teacher and an environmental activist (John Krasinski).Rob (Titus Welliver) who owns Rob's Guns and Groceries is sweet on Sue while flirty school teacher Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt) sparks Matt's love interest. The film uses stock cardboard characters to create a nice feel good tale. There is a twist at the end that wasn't too much of a shock. The farmer's have to decide if they want to sell the rights and risk losing their land to environmental poisoning, or wait and lose the land due to poverty as government subsidies dwindle and market prices fall. It is a gamble either way.The film is not a documentary. It does inform the viewer what fracking is and why it poses danger, but doesn't drive it home to the point of turn off.Parental Guide: f-bomb. No sex or nudity.

Excellent movie that offers a realistic look into the world of corporate tactics and behavioral manipulation of the masses. It would seem that the focus was to engage the viewers with the hopes of opening eyes and taking the blinders off. This movie isn't a cheesy film with fight scenes, sex, or cheap thrills but instead offers depth. I can only guess that many of these reviews are from fracking organizations to keep this movie from getting the attention it deserves.

I haven't seen a movie for a while, that would be so honest and deep in so many levels, as this one. I was surprised to see such low grades on it, when everything and everyone in it, are just brilliant. Matt Damon, superb as always, Frances the same, dialogs are good and witty, scenery and message of the movie is touching. Its a crazy thing, where this world is going...We are losing everything and still nobody cares about all that, when the right amount is offered. Yes, there is money in our land, its in the gas or oil, or something else, but when this money is spent, what is there left?what will we eat and where will we live?...Its a scary thought and a scary future, that will happen, whether we like it or not.There isn't a lot of Matt Damons out there that could stop it happen and even he wasn't able to... I will be thinking about this movie and its message for a very long time..

How's that for a subject line? Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, Hal Holbrook and John Krasinski are in the "Promised Land" in this 2012 film about a controversial subject, fracking.Damon and McDormand play Steve and Sue, two employees of Global, a company that buys drilling rights. Both have different motives. For Sue (McDormand), it's a paycheck and nothing more. For Steve (Damon), who grew up in the country, he knows what it is for a small area to lose industry and for hard economic times to hit farmers, and he feels like buying their drilling rights is a way to secure the future of farmers and their families.They run into opposition from a teacher, Frank Yates (Holbrook) who tells the people at a town meeting that fracking can negatively affect the water supply. Then an environmentalist comes to town (Krasinski) and really shakes up the fracking campaign. Not only that, but he and Steve are interested in the same woman (Rosemarie DeWitt).Beautiful film directed by Gus Van Sant, with Damon giving an underplayed performance as a sincere Everyman who sincerely believes hydraulic fracking is a strong economic option. The cinematography is lovely and enhances the story of pride in the land, in ownership, and in family history of farming.There is a twist in the story and an excellent point: the power of corporations in this country is awesome; they have the resources available to manipulate any situation. And there's a underlying question about where the country is headed. FDR said, "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power." It's something to think about, and this fine movie gives us plenty to ponder.