Promised Land

I took a flier on this film and I need to be honest that I biffed the first 15 minutes, so this isn't complete. I jumped in on Damon at a bar trying to befriend a small-town and I was engrossed from there. Damon plays essentially a salesman who is pushing "fracking", or the harvesting of natural gas, to a small, struggling town in... I'm not sure what state sadly. His campaign hits a snag when a retired engineer who teaches science at the local high school starts shining a light on some of the issues from fracking. Damon and Francis Mcdormond are forced into trying to sign up enough of the town-folk to win a vote. John Krasinski hops in as an environmentalist who is essentially the natural gas companies worst nightmare. He's the charming, charismatic, friendly, and passionate employee of Athena Environmental Group. He jumps into the fray and talks to everyone he can about his family farm in Nebraska that fracking ruined by killing off his families dairy cattle and ruining his families livelihood. They battle back & forth and exchange seeming victories and defeats to a building vote that everything depends on. There's a great twist and I feel it salvaged the movie since it was rather boring for most people. Bottom Line: 6.8 out of 10. I enjoyed the story and I think fracking is a VERY interesting issue for these small, poor towns. The question of mortgaging a shaky, struggling, toiling future for money and a possible, perhaps even probable environmental issue/issues stemming from the fracking that will ruin your land and way of life. HBO has some excellent documentaries on it that are worth watching if it's of interest to you. Watching people light their kitchen sinks and garden hoses on fire like Kennedy's Eternal flame is VERY fascinating and terrifying. Damon and Krasinski are both excellent and Mcdormond is rock solid as always. I'd rent/ watch this on HBO.