Promised Land
Promised Land has multi-national Global Corps crack salesman Steve Butler (Matt Daman) - along with trusty side kick Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) - making quite a name for himself while climbing the corporate ladder. Steve is a master at duping rural residents sitting on shale deposits rich with natural gas into selling their properties mineral rights for rock bottom (so to speak) prices. And yes there will be fracking. Butler’s not totally mercenary as he comes from a one industry town that lost its meal ticket and thus he can not fathom why anyone would not jump at the chance to easily cash in on a financially secure life. For the most part people do. However in one hamlet the dissenting voice of Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook) gets traction with the locals. That only steam rolls when the ironically named militant environmentalist Dustin Noble (John Krasinski) rolls into town with personal horror stories of fracking catastrophes that poison and kill. Noble frustrates Butler even more when he starts dating Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt) a teacher in town that Butler has taken a shine to. Promised Land is a fairly well crafted make work project for Matt Damon and John Krasinski while at the same time touching on a subject close to Damans activist heart. Under direction of Gus Van Sant, kudos to the stars/screenwriters for even handed sensitivity in bringing attention to such a polarizing issue.