'PROMISED LAND'

'PROMISED LAND' (R) (3 STARS)

Written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Actors: Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, John Krasinski, Rosemarie DeWitt, Scoot McNairy, Hal Holbrook, Titus Welliver, Tim Guinee, Lucas Black, Terry Kinney.

"Promised Land" might look like a good for you, preachy, enviornmental message movie by it's previews. It is actually an entertaining, clever and well written movie that a Frank Capra could have made in his prime. It is also a fun movie because of the warm and charming actors playing good people that we like right away. There is also a neat plot twist half way through that caught me by surprise and made sense. It is not a cheap trick, it brings out the moral stances of all the characters involved here.

This is a very smart screenplay by actors Matt Damon and John Krasinki. Damon and Frances McDormand play corporate salesmen Steve and Sue who come to a small rural town to try to convince the landowners to sell the rights to drilling on their properties. Th drilling is to retrieve natural gas that could make the owners rich. To get the gas there will be a proccess called "fracking". That process could find riches for these people but it could also harm their land and kill off livestock for example. That is what young Dustin proclaims and Dustin is an enviornmentalist that is trying to stop Steve and Sue from their quest.

Steve will get involved with a pretty school teacher who also may have eyes for Dustin. I was anticipating a love triangle that would come off as phony but it is actually handled really well. The movie is directed by Gus Van Sant who has done a great job of picking very different type projects. He does a great job filming in real locations in Pittsburgh. The town feels real including the waterhole that the townsfolk go to where Steve will meet Alice, the school teacher. The movie also has characters we like, there are no clear cut good guys or bad guys. Everyone is trying to do their job and stand by their principles.

There will be a plot twist that could have ruined the vibe of this movie but I liked how it made sense and how it seemed like it could have actually happened. I like how writers Damon and Krasinski flesh out these characters instead of making them stereotypes. Matt Damon is such a likeable actor who always seems real plus you never see him acting. He gets great support from Frances McDormand as his partner and McDormand is very funny and steals the movie like she does a lot of times in other movies. Also John Krasinski as Dustin seems very likeable and I look forward to more of his big screen work. Rosemarie DeWitt is also very natural and sweet here as Alice. DeWitt is building up a nice career and I find her always a natural beauty who has an easy going charm about her.

"Promised Land" has good intentions and it is never a preachy movie trying to teach you a boring lesson. The screenplay is solid and Krasinski and Damon do a good job even though it is not on the level of Damon and Ben Affleck's work on "Good Will Hunting". Though I will say that this story has some of that movie's charm, humor and characters that we like following and rooting for. It might seem like a cookie cutter drama but I was surprised a lot by how entertaining and different it turned out to be.