'Promised Land' review: Fracking the farm

Fracking? It isn't the sexiest movie topic, even with Matt Damon playing a cute corporate executive trying to buy up drillable land in a poor farming town. And if your politics tilt rightward, you might be predisposed to dismiss "Promised Land," which co-stars John Krasinski as a rabble-rousing environmentalist.

As it turns out, "Promised Land" isn't dull, though the bias is another matter. Fracking, a natural-gas extraction method, has been a financial boon to struggling communities even while raising concerns about its environmental impact, and this movie's screenplay (written by its two stars with Dave Eggers) does present forceful arguments from both sides. The movie never gets stridently political, but it ultimately insists on doing things the typical, Hollywood way.

"Promised Land" does a good job of making the political personal -- Steve's insensitive but impassioned rant to a group of stubborn farmers is the film's best and boldest scene -- and director Gus Van Sant (Damon's "Good Will Hunting") takes a straight-ahead, almost hands-off approach. But the screenplay eventually sacrifices shades of gray for black and white. It needs a villain, and you can bet it won't be the farmers. Conservatives, you might have been right after all.