This is a soft hitting environmental film. Steve Butler (Matt Damon) represents Global which wants to buy the gas drilling rights to a town. He is from a farming community, but can't drive a stick shift. He is also ill informed of the dangers of fracking. His partner is Sue (Frances McDormand) a working mom who tries to parent from Skype. In the town of Miller's Falls, they meet resistance from Frank (Hal Holbrook) the local science teacher and an environmental activist (John Krasinski).Rob (Titus Welliver) who owns Rob's Guns and Groceries is sweet on Sue while flirty school teacher Alice (Rosemarie DeWitt) sparks Matt's love interest. The film uses stock cardboard characters to create a nice feel good tale. There is a twist at the end that wasn't too much of a shock. The farmer's have to decide if they want to sell the rights and risk losing their land to environmental poisoning, or wait and lose the land due to poverty as government subsidies dwindle and market prices fall. It is a gamble either way.The film is not a documentary. It does inform the viewer what fracking is and why it poses danger, but doesn't drive it home to the point of turn off.Parental Guide: f-bomb. No sex or nudity.

This was okay, it didn't leave as much of an impression on me as it was probably meant to with its controversial subject matter but it is a quality film. Beautifully shot, with a fantastic cast and involving story. Its also funny at times and for the most part involving if a little dry.Matt Damon is Steve Butler, a salesman for a natural gas company who along with his partner Sue(Frances McDormand) arrive in a small Pennsylvania town to secure drilling rights for a natural-gas company. Steve goes door to door and promises millions to the financially suffering farmers, holds a town meeting in the gym, where he gets shut down by a retired science teacher (the awesome Hal Holbrook) and then proceeds to get drunk in the local bar where he meets a schoolteacher who he repeatedly lets know, "I'm a good guy". Obviously Steve is doubting himself since he's sold out to the man. Steve's conscience plays heavily into this story, whereas to Sue, she tells us its just a job.Before long the leader of an environmental group (John Krasinski) shows up and works the townsfolk against Steve so that despite the economic down turn the townspeople are no longer willing to just accept whatever deal is laid before them. Seems like this sure thing deal isn't going to be so easy.Both Matt Damon and John Kransinski do a great job in conveying their character's qualities and aspirations and I also enjoyed the relationship between Matt and Frances, you do get to know all these characters and in that respect this film shines. A bit of a twist towards the end just in case you felt pulled in one direction or the other ethically but all in not a film I'm going to remember for long. 5/3/16

I didn't include this movie in my video run with Frances and it was an error. But it was understandable to be as cautious as lately, American movies have plunged into harmless conformism with bad directors, bad cast praising sex, money, authority and violence ! In other words, audience are kept entertained but not enlightened. As this movie is just the opposite, it was really good ! Maybe it's a bit binary but at least we have data from both sides to make an opinion : as it's told, families and earth are involved and it's not that easy to decide and balance. But if the process needs careful evaluation, the movie shows clearly what we can't accept and that is lies, treachery, duplicity in the name of greed ! With that plot, the cast is indeed remarkably well chosen because Frances is really labeled being straight, docile while Damon is really the good guy ! It was also great to go to another Smallville and it's was a discovery to learn that this rural America is also threatened by desertification like my old country ! But the real difference is the democratic answer as depicted in the movie in which America seems to let its citizens decide where in my country, it's our Président- curator who decide alone for 60 millions. That's why the movie was so much interest for me as we can see a real debate to go for or refuse shale oil while in France it has been totally forbidden without any consultation !

Promised Land starring Matt Damon (Steve Butler) isn't the bad guy. Howver as the son of a grower himself, he's personable, and—for good measure—he makes sure to say, "I'm not a bad guy" to many of the people he meets. Gus Van Sant's didactic drama, by contrast, is quite a bad movie, though it takes a little while for that to become evident. When Steve and his business partner, Frances McDormand (Sue), arrive in the rural Pennsylvania community that is their company's latest target, the film revels in atmosphere more than plot. There's a real feel for small-town dynamics: The local watering holes seem populated by genuinely weathered homesteaders as opposed to central-casting extras. And you get a vivid sense of who's running the show. Running at only 106 minutes, Promised Land ultimately becomes and feels more of a run time over of 120 minutes.