Night Moves (2013)
An unusually plot-driven by minimalist director Kelly Reichardt, this thriller shows intriguing and timely concerns in depicting a group of young environmental activists executing a plan to blow up a hydroelectric dam in Oregon.
The film should not be confused with Arthur Penn’s 1975 masterpiece, also titled Night Moves, a noir thriller starring Gene Hackman and the young (and sexy) Melanie Griffith.
The film has its roots in the 1970s political paranoia wave (See my essay on Conspiracy Films”).
Unlike most climate-crisis films, it’s a probe into the urgency for action weighed against the costs of a radicalized response.
The film’s complex ideological dialectic makes it a good companion piece to last year’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline.
The nocturnal sequence in which eco-warriors (Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard) carry out the mission builds much suspense before pivoting to reflective distance by registering the explosion only as noise.
Reichardt, one of few genuinely regional indie filmmakers, shows great understanding of and appreciation for the Pacific Northwest.
