User Reviews

When the movie ended, credits rolled but no one moved or said a word. That doesn't often happen in a fairly crowded movie theater. Processing was required. Promised Land is a movie that makes people think and thinking does not mix well with fracking.

Promised Land was much better than I expected. We knew there was a plot twist coming but we were unprepared for the creepiness–picture George Clooney on a hill petting some horses when his car blows up creepy, and that's not creepy enough. As I sat there watching the credits roll, I thought, "Yeah, they would totally do that."

Big money and huge effort has been invested to discredit this movie just like they did with the documentary Gasland. They rolled out a new website called The Real Promised Land and a new Facebook page by the same name.

Now I understand why the huge investment in discrediting Promised Land. Movies that make people think are dangerous.

This movie is not about the environmental devastation caused by fracking. It's about the predatory practices used by industry to gain access to our backyards and how communities loose their way in gasland and are torn apart.

I like happy endings, but life is not all happy endings. This was a good film, even with the Hollywood Ending, but it would have been a much more better film, if it had a realistic ending. The realistic ending would be a rational, intelligent person sitting down and weighing their options in life. In other words, try putting yourself in the place of these Pennsylvania farmers, who are slowly sinking in the quagmire of debt and increasing losses from unsustainable businesses. At some point, the vast majority of people in this situation cut their losses; they don't make Hollywood stands against fate and bad business environments. And speaking of environments, one statement in the film rang very true. If you are against fracking, then you are for oil and atomic energy. Gas is a much cleaner and safer alternative. We saw what happened in Japan with atomic energy, and we know how oil becomes gasoline and pollutes the air and environment so badly that cities like Los Angeles and Beijing are breathing health hazards on several days a year. So gas fracking sometimes pollutes the water; sometimes it kills the livestock. These are serious risks. These risks must be weighed against current economic conditions and individual needs of the farmers in the region. From what I saw, even the MIT-genius teacher was suffering economically. Is economic ruin worth bearing for a clear conscience? Is making a profit on your previously unprofitable property by taking an environmental risk worth it? I don't pretend to know the answers to these questions. But I do know a little bit about human nature; and that translates into a professional oil or gas man changing sides because his or her conscience bothers them. There is not one record of incidence of that type of event occurring; regardless of any Hollywood fantasy. The real drama, the real tough decision comes from the farmers themselves, not from the gas guy or some environmentalist. The farmer has to weigh what will be gained against what will be lost. We, and Hollywood, have nothing to say about it.

Three of us went to see Promised Land (PL) last night and I hate to say this, but the movie was not only shoddy standard Hollywood fare, it failed completely in being even moderately realistic as well as failing to clarify the issues involved with both fracking industrialization of rural areas and the genuine short and long term impacts involved. I don't know what rock the film's scriptwriters and producers have been hiding under, but the average person in the street knows more about fracking and it's implications than they did. The manner in which the leasing agents were approaching property owners was false, the town's individual and collective reaction was pure fiction and the premise (that there was a mole "double agent" in the employ of a huge gas corporation passing himself off as an environmentalist) is patently ludicrous.

I know landowners in the middle of the rural fracking boom in the northern tier of the state who have been in the midst of the real site of this ongoing crisis since it began 4 years ago and also know people who work in the shale gas industry so I am pretty familiar with how the process works.

First off, unlike the way it is portrayed in PL, the leasing agents are more often independents who collect signed leases and then bundle them and sell them to the highest bidder for a percentage profit.

Second, the idea promoted by PL that the community "votes" on whether to "allow" the mining in their area is completely false -- we ALL know that state commerce rules largely supercede any local regulations, even if the court's stay of the worst features of Act 13 stands.

Third, the portrayal of rural small town life as an idyllic environment inhabited by idealistic traditionalists is largely false. The reason that there has been such a boom in drilling is that a large percentage of individual land owners are enthusiastic, sometimes blindly so, about signing up to get the money from the drillers. And most, even if they have not leased, have friends or family who work either for the drilling industries or for businesses that profit from their presence, like industrial suppliers, truck drivers, laborers and owners and employees of motels, restaurants and service stations. Even if it is a Devil's Bargain, the fracking industry has brought at least a temporary level of prosperity to many struggling small towns. Much of the population of these regions tend to have a suspicion of environmentalism (which they associate with "big city liberals") and of academics and science, so educating them about the real threat to their lifestyles and health by shale gas drilling is a tough row to hoe. The notion that locals would challenge and beat up a gas leasing agent in a bar is beyond dumb.

Fourth, there was virtually NO real depiction or explanation of the process of fracking in the film. The schoolroom "demonstration" scene and the "dead cows in Louisiana" trope were ludicrous. There are REAL environmental issues with frack drilling and REAL accidents affecting human and animal health that could have been worked into the script. There was NO mention of air pollution, the effects of heavy traffic on rural roads, the noise and emissions of compressor stations, the land destruction of pipelines, the massive draw-offs of water and the disposal problems of "produced" waste water. Anyone not already familiar with the frack process and the issues involved would learn nothing from this film. The subplot about the doofus living in the trailer who enthusiastically signs a lease is beyond dumb. For one thing, a fracking well pad takes a MINIMUM of 4 acres and most are closer to 10. No leasing agent would solicit a contract for the guy's 1.3 acre plot. And people who are leasing their property tend to be pretty well informed about the going rates and royalties. Pretty typical Hollywood condescension towards rural folk as dim yokels.

Fifth, though I am no big fan of the oil and gas industry, I do know that they are more greedy than sneaky and the plot device of the "secret agent" is silly and distorts the real issues. Yes, the industry does sponsor duplicitous phony "environmental" propaganda, but the standard two-dimensional Hollywood portrayal of the "evil corporation" and the "ethical insider with a heart who has an epiphany" are cheap shots and juvenile scripting. I could have drafted a more effective script than this one in about 15 minutes.

Honestly, the fracking industry has little to fear from this dopey film (we got to the 7:15 screening early enough to be subjected to the entire 45 minutes of ads and "coming attractions" and didn't see any of the "industry information" we were told to expect). And I see little in this piece of Hollywood run-of-the-mill cheese that would inform or energize anyone about the genuine issues involved in the fracking dilemma. If anything, the falseness of the premises and the portrayals could be a setback for the movement. There are such major gaffes and gaps in this film that I feel strongly that it would be a mistake for the anti- fracking movement to pin any publicity or hopes on it in strengthening the cause.

The movie is a complete disappointment and a failure, both as a dramatic production and as a potentially influential public wake-up call. Hollywood crap. Matt Damon should be ashamed of this pablum.

Promised Land, the new movie from director Gus Van Sant, takes a long hard look at people's decisions to sell land use rights away to energy companies for gas drilling. Small landowners and large farm owners each face a crisis when the gas man comes to town. The Pennsylvania landowners are not the only people to go through a crisis of conscience in the movie. The energy company employees also struggle with sorting out the truth and the lies behind their work. As one employee says, "it's just a job". Increasingly as the real news comes out day after day about chemical contamination after hydraulic fracturing – fracking – one person's job morphs into another person's tragedy.

I grew up in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains in New York, a rural area that is now at a the center of a raging debate over fracking land rights for the Marcellus Shale gas. Fracking was put on hold here in New York, due to concerns over health impact of chemicals used and chemical waste produced. The story in the movie, Promised Land, as written by star actors Matt Damon and John Krasinski, captures parts of country life from my childhood with true colors. Closeness to the earth, respectful of honesty in conversation, I remember this well. The dialog throughout is natural and believable.The movie is beautifully filmed to share the peace of nature.

A really fascinating film regarding an industry in which I had virtually little or no idea about. Being naïve with regards to the mining hazards involved with attaining natural gas resources (fracking), I was probably as shocked as the citizens of this Smalltown, USA, being depicted in this film. Basically an 'Erin Brockovich' in reverse as the film is being told through the eyes of the Mega-conglomerate representative, Steve Butler (played wonderfully by Matt Damon) being asked to secure the mining rights for this whole sorely economically deprived small Midwestern town. It's an all or nothing, do or die, one time offer, for this dying Middle American town; however, do the environmental risks outweigh the possible financial gains? Exquisitely written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, and expertly directed by the acclaimed Gus Van Sant, this film effectively encapsulates the struggles currently being experienced by the American farmer. The ease at which BIG BUSINESS (and their fat checkbooks) can sweep in, scoop up, and devour everything and anything in front of them is truly appalling to witness.

This film centers on Steve Butler (Damon), a small town boy from Iowa who has productively transitioned to the world of corporate America and is rapidly climbing the ladder of success. Being raised in a small town as well, Butler readily identifies with his perspective clients. He walks their walk, talks their talk, and he dresses down (more casually) to order to convey a more hometown personable sales approach in these very trying times. In Butler's defense, he unequivocally believes that his presence in these towns is to help the farmers and save these small towns; however, he does have a bottom line, and he is trying to accomplish his task at the least possible cost to his $9 Billion dollar company.

However, the film's true star is John Krasinski as Dustin Nobles. Nobles is the one-man environmental activist team from Athena, here to stop or at least make the populace aware that there are definitely some environmental catastrophic possibilities linked to the natural gas 'fracking' harvesting process. Nobles is also very personable, there to win the hearts and minds of the population. A small town boy from Nebraska whose family lost their farm after mining operations literally tainted their water supply and killed the land. Basically a David versus Goliath story, where the Goliath (Butler) actually believes that he's there for the greater good of the town.

I really enjoyed this film, an interesting tale on a subject matter in which I thought was the safer, better, cleaner alternative to our fossil fuel dependency. However, it seems that all things come with a price and/or risk. I can see why this film did not do better at the box office, because stories told from the side of corporate American seems to be supporting the evil villains in the story. Nevertheless, I highly recommend seeing this film. The film is definitely worth the price of renting, and totally worth your time and energy to seek out.

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