Matt Damon, left, as a energy company land man and John Krasinski as an environmentalist in “Promised Land.”
Friday’s column, available on houstonchronicle.com:
“Promised Land” doesn’t live up to its promise.
The motion picture, which opens in Houston on Friday, stars Matt Damon as a natural gas company landman buying up leases in rural Pennsylvania. It’s supposed to explore the controversy surrounding hydraulic fracturing.
“It’s clearly a part of the national dialogue,” said Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute. “Hollywood and others have taken note. While ‘Promised Land’ is a fictional story with fictional characters, it’s still a wonderful topic.”
The oil industry has been wary of the film, in part because hydraulic fracturing didn’t fare too kindly in the Academy Award-nominated documentary “Gasland.”
