Promised Land (2012)
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Written by Gus Van Sant
Starring Matt Damon, John Krasinski, Frances McDormand, Rosemarie Dewitt, Hal Holbrook
Release Date December 28th, 2012
"Promised Land" has an earnest charm that sadly isn't enough to repair its airless, smug storytelling. Written by stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, "Promised Land" is an achingly liberal tract about the environmental dangers posed by gas companies and while there is a nobility of ideas, there is a distinct lacking in execution.
Born in a Small Town
Damon stars as Steve Butler, a rising star at a gas company called Global. Steve is from Eldridge, Iowa and was deeply influenced by the loss of a Caterpillar plant in Davenport that, for a time, devastated the local economy of his hometown and surrounding towns. That loss drives Steve today to buy up struggling family farms in hopes of enriching people who remind him of his former neighbors.
That much of what Steve is selling are lies does wear on him but he hopes that the potential for big checks for himself, and the small town folks he's buying up, will make up for his bad karma. Steve's partner Sue (Francis McDormand) is driven more by her paycheck than her backstory.
Together they travel to a small farming community in Pennsylvania where they hope to sell the locals on selling their land to the gas company. Steve and Sue find trouble however, in a local teacher (Hal Holbrook) and an out of town environmentalist (John Krasinski), eager to stir up anti-natural gas sentiment.
Small Town Showdown
That's the set up for a small town showdown but where the film goes from there is far too silly and smug to support the kind of drama that the stars and director Gus Van Sant want to create. We know from the beginning, as Steve is dunking his head in a bathroom sink, that a crisis of conscience is imminent. We also know the crisis of conscience is coming because Damon is a well-known liberal activist playing a character working for an evil gas company.
Whether you're inclined to agree with Damon and Krasinski or not doesn't really matter. You can be a hardcore, left wing, liberal Democrat and still find "Promised Land" mind numbingly predictable; at least in the case of Damon's Steve. If you can predict where Krasinski's character is headed, you're better at this than I am and you will also still be dumbfounded by it.
Charming Stars
All of that said, and putting my issues with the film aside, it's impossible for this group of stars, which also includes Rosemarie Dewitt as Damon's love interest/savior, not to have a little charm. Krasinski pours on the smug as the righteous environmentalist but he does deliver a charmingly bad Bruce Springsteen karaoke performance. Damon is a little more troublesome as he has the burden of predictability around his neck.
Thankfully, Damon is well teamed with Dewitt and their scenes together crackle with the chemistry of a more interesting movie. McDermott is her usual fascinating, funny self as the more pragmatic and resigned character than Damon. And then, of course, there is Holbrook who lends the film his integrity for a couple of pretty good scenes.
Is "Promised Land" a bad movie? No, but it is far from a good movie. The film telegraphs its intentions and never raises enough interest to get around its predictability. There is a good deal of skill and charm in the acting and direction of "Promised Land" but it is in service of a failing, predictable, tract of a story.
