Promised Land (2012)

½*/****
starring Matt Damon, John Kraskinski, Frances McDormand, Rosemarie DeWitt
screenplay by John Krasinski & Matt Damon, based on a story by Dave Eggers
directed by Gus Van Sant


Promisedland

by Walter Chaw The first warning sign is that Gus Van Sant's Promised
Land
is named after a Natalie Merchant song, though that's really all the
warning you need. Give this to
Steven Soderbergh, another director who, like Van Sant, has alternated small,
personal projects with the occasional crowd-pleaser: At least when Soderbergh does it, it's not simpering crap like Finding Forrester or Milk. (The
best Van Sant film of the year, in fact, is Julia Loktev's astounding The
Loneliest Planet
.) Here, alas, Van Sant is reunited with Good Will
Hunting
buddy Matt Damon, directing a screenplay Damon co-wrote with co-star John Krasinski from a story by (gulp) Dave Eggers. Featuring enough
self-satisfaction to power Ed Begley, Jr.'s enviro-car for a
century, Promised Land is the kind of movie that suggests everything Conservatives believe about Lefties being tree-hugging, privileged morons is pretty dead on the mark. What I'm saying is that it's stupid; Ayn
Rand ain't got nothin' on Damon and Krasinski.

Damon is Steve BUTLER, a rep for a giant gas-mining
company tasked with inculcating himself in small communities with his aw-shucks
good looks and his grandpappy's work boots. His partner is tough-talking Marge
Gunderson-type Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), just doing her job, ma'am, and
their antagonist is greenie activist Dustin NOBLE (Krasinski). Damon is a
servant and Dustin is a saint–get it? Try to keep up, dummies. It seems that
Butler isn't telling the simple folk of Backwoods, Asswhere that the way evil gas companies extract gas is through the controversial "fracking"
process, which could, potentially, poison their land at the same time it's not making them
rich. That said, Butler is a goodly sort of fellow who only needs to see the
wrong of his doing to stop stumping for The Man. Dustin, on the other hand,
should be arrested he mugs so much. He mugs in a redneck honkytonk on karaoke
night (what?), and he mugs while speaking to hot schoolmarm Alice's (Rosemarie DeWitt) class of impressionable tots. And then it's revealed–in the
world's dumbest, most poorly-thought out reveal–that Dustin may not be what he
appears to be, causing Butler (and this is only a spoiler if you're an
idiot, I swear to God) to come to a crisis in a public setting! What will he do? And did you know that Alice has a big garden in her giant backyard? It's
her kinfolk's farm; she couldn't let it go to seed.

Promised Land will be called well-intentioned by patronizing people
and a diatribe by those who want to attack it. What it actually is is the product
of powerful people who can ramrod an under-baked thing like this into existence simply by offering to defer their salaries. There's a conversation, a serious
one, to be had about fracking, about the machinations of energy corporations, about capitalism–but it's rich that these wealthy white guys think the best
way to go about inspiring debate is by presenting straw men at play in the
heart of hicksploitation U.S.A.. The dialogue is deeply embarrassing and the
plot–meandering around a meaningless love triangle, ignoring anything like
humanity in its hasty sketches posing as characters, and painting all of it like
the first two stanzas of any John Cougar Mellencamp song–likewise. The truth
is, Damon and Krasinski, probably smart guys, are likely trying to dumb it all
down to "trick" us ordinary folk into a sermon–less persuasion and
appeal to intelligence than a timeshare pitch posing as a free vacation offer.

Consider the moment where
Noble explains to us halfwits who Athena is to diagnose exactly how early the
script is in its development and how no one cared enough to go back to
the typewriter for one more pass. Or consider Hal Holbrook's role as a retired genius
teaching high school because he wants to (but later confessing that he needs
money to make ends meet in Bumblefuck, Mayberry, pop. uncles raising
nephews of brothers lost in the Iraq!), who exists exclusively to explain what
the issues of the film are–because, frankly, you won't get it unless a high-school teacher tells you (but don't worry, he didn't always used to be a
high-school teacher). The big twist doesn't work the way it wants to and the big
emotions are…haha, stop it. The saddest part is that Damon and DeWitt have
real chemistry, but Damon's playing an affable nitwit and DeWitt's playing a
plot point, and that, as they say, is that. It's Mitt Romney in blue jeans, this
Promised Land, and we've all had enough of that.

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12 Comments

  1. PlebontheWeb

    ‘Promised Land is the kind of movie that suggests everything Conservatives believe about Lefties being tree-hugging, privileged morons is pretty dead on the mark.’
    I’m trying very hard to imagine a Liberal saying something like the reverse – as in, ‘Red Dawn is the kind of movie that suggests everything Liberals believe about Righties being gun-toting, militaristic morons is pretty dead on the mark’ – and finding it, frankly, just impossible.

  2. PlebontheWeb

    ‘Promised Land is the kind of movie that suggests everything Conservatives believe about Lefties being tree-hugging, privileged morons is pretty dead on the mark.’
    I’m trying very hard to imagine a Liberal saying something like the reverse – as in, ‘Red Dawn is the kind of movie that suggests everything Liberals believe about Righties being gun-toting, militaristic morons is pretty dead on the mark’ – and finding it, frankly, just impossible.

  3. PlebontheWeb

    ‘Promised Land is the kind of movie that suggests everything Conservatives believe about Lefties being tree-hugging, privileged morons is pretty dead on the mark.’
    I’m trying very hard to imagine a Liberal saying something like the reverse – as in, ‘Red Dawn is the kind of movie that suggests everything Liberals believe about Righties being gun-toting, militaristic morons is pretty dead on the mark’ – and finding it, frankly, just impossible.

  4. Dan

    But why would a Liberal say what you’re suggesting? It makes no sense (even if it actually *does* make sense), because that’s what they’d say anyway. You’re missing the point – this is what a *Conservative* would say. Clearly Walter is Liberal. Or am I missing something here?

  5. Dan

    But why would a Liberal say what you’re suggesting? It makes no sense (even if it actually *does* make sense), because that’s what they’d say anyway. You’re missing the point – this is what a *Conservative* would say. Clearly Walter is Liberal. Or am I missing something here?

  6. Dan

    But why would a Liberal say what you’re suggesting? It makes no sense (even if it actually *does* make sense), because that’s what they’d say anyway. You’re missing the point – this is what a *Conservative* would say. Clearly Walter is Liberal. Or am I missing something here?

  7. Dan

    Oh, and what the hell is wrong with a Natalie Merchant song? Or am I setting myself up for something…

  8. Dan

    Oh, and what the hell is wrong with a Natalie Merchant song? Or am I setting myself up for something…

  9. Dan

    Oh, and what the hell is wrong with a Natalie Merchant song? Or am I setting myself up for something…

  10. PlebontheWeb

    Why would a Liberal say so indeed. Of course, they wouldn’t, that’s the point. A Conservative expressing such sentiments ABSOLUTELY – no-ifs no-buts – means that he’s an unthinking rube.
    Conversely, a Liberal like Matt Damon making what you might call a ‘tree-hugging, misguided moronic’ movie, is in NO WAY supposed to reflect on Liberals in the same way a movie like Red Dawn is supposed to reflect on Conservatives.
    In fact, as Walter’s at pains to explain to us all, it’s not that a Leftie making a ‘tree-hugging, misguided moronic’ movie is what Lefties who hew to ‘tree-hugging misguided moronic’ ideas DO (which they do), it instead is supposed to be understood as enabling those dastardly Conservatives to misrepresent ‘tree-hugging misguided moronic’ Lefties.
    The obvious question is, how is a Leftie doing as a Leftie does supposed to be a misrepresentation of Lefties?
    Oh and BTW, it doesn’t take a Conservative to find the ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ mentality oft displayed by Liberals to be distinctly unappealing.

  11. PlebontheWeb

    Why would a Liberal say so indeed. Of course, they wouldn’t, that’s the point. A Conservative expressing such sentiments ABSOLUTELY – no-ifs no-buts – means that he’s an unthinking rube.
    Conversely, a Liberal like Matt Damon making what you might call a ‘tree-hugging, misguided moronic’ movie, is in NO WAY supposed to reflect on Liberals in the same way a movie like Red Dawn is supposed to reflect on Conservatives.
    In fact, as Walter’s at pains to explain to us all, it’s not that a Leftie making a ‘tree-hugging, misguided moronic’ movie is what Lefties who hew to ‘tree-hugging misguided moronic’ ideas DO (which they do), it instead is supposed to be understood as enabling those dastardly Conservatives to misrepresent ‘tree-hugging misguided moronic’ Lefties.
    The obvious question is, how is a Leftie doing as a Leftie does supposed to be a misrepresentation of Lefties?
    Oh and BTW, it doesn’t take a Conservative to find the ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ mentality oft displayed by Liberals to be distinctly unappealing.

  12. PlebontheWeb

    Why would a Liberal say so indeed. Of course, they wouldn’t, that’s the point. A Conservative expressing such sentiments ABSOLUTELY – no-ifs no-buts – means that he’s an unthinking rube.
    Conversely, a Liberal like Matt Damon making what you might call a ‘tree-hugging, misguided moronic’ movie, is in NO WAY supposed to reflect on Liberals in the same way a movie like Red Dawn is supposed to reflect on Conservatives.
    In fact, as Walter’s at pains to explain to us all, it’s not that a Leftie making a ‘tree-hugging, misguided moronic’ movie is what Lefties who hew to ‘tree-hugging misguided moronic’ ideas DO (which they do), it instead is supposed to be understood as enabling those dastardly Conservatives to misrepresent ‘tree-hugging misguided moronic’ Lefties.
    The obvious question is, how is a Leftie doing as a Leftie does supposed to be a misrepresentation of Lefties?
    Oh and BTW, it doesn’t take a Conservative to find the ‘I’m rubber, you’re glue’ mentality oft displayed by Liberals to be distinctly unappealing.

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