Promise Land

Director: Gus Van Sant
Cast: Matt Damon John Krasinski, Frances McDormand, Rosemarie DeWitt, Hal Holbrook
Genre: Drama 2012
Running time: 107 mins.
Rating:★★★

Corporate salesman, Steve Butler (Matt Damon) has been dispatched in the rural town of McKinley with his sales partner (Frances McDormand) to offer much-needed relief to the economically hard-hit residents in exchange for drilling rights to their properties. What seems like an easy job for the duo quickly becomes complicated by a respected school teacher (Hal Holbrook), a slick environmental activist (John Krasinski), and Steve's interest in a local woman (Rosemarie DeWitt). As they grapple with a surprising array of both open hearts and closed doors, the outsiders soon discover the strength of an American small town at a crossroads.

The chemistry between Matt Damon and Frances McDormand is fantastic! It is very obvious their characters having being doing sales together for so long that they know how to push each others' buttons and how to bring out the best in one another. An almost brother-sister dynamic. Although, Frances McDormand out acts Matt Damon, which is no surprise because after all, she is Frances McDormand....enough said.

An Us-Them pride struggle along with a deep desperation for this small town folk to not let their town and their lively hood go bankrupt and die, this film, at the heart of it, is about Steve's journey through all this. It is not a romance film, though it touches on it lightly. Steve's journey starts out as an over-confident and competitive salesman, who will once again win over small town folk's "simple minds" and their greed for money. As things get complicated, his comfort zone and self-esteem are torn apart, the audience realizes with him that there are a lot of suppressed anger issues. Issues that Steve desperately tried to run away and rebel from. It is not until the "black and white" mind set of whose bad and whose good or whose right and whose wrong is shattered and betrayed, that Steve is able to deal with his demons. He is finally able to break free from his gilded cage and enjoy life again!