Promised Land

Fracking is a hot-button issue, but you wouldn't know it from Promised Land, which barely stirs any passions as it trundles through a mundane plot. Matt Damon and Frances McDormand are the gas salespeople who arrive in a small town confident in their ability to persuade its inhabitants to sign over their land for a small fee. However, they haven't reckoned on pugnacious pensioner Hal Holbrook, environmental activist John Krasinski and schoolteacher Rosemarie DeWitt, who catches Damon's eye.

With these actors and the talent behind the camera (Gus Van Sant directs; Krasinski wrote the script with Dave Eggers), the lack of impact is bewildering. Before it entirely collapses with a climactic revelation, the screenplay relies on familiar dramatic beats and confrontations, while Van Sant directs with the detached air of someone who knows he can make a film like this in his sleep. Worst of all is the way Promised Land uses the fracking theme to earn it some secondhand import while never bothering to dig beneath the surface itself. [Philip Concannon]