Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning plan to blow up a hydroelectric dam in Night Moves
Three radical environmentalists plan to blow up a hydroelectric dam. It sounds like a very intense and intriguing premise for a movie. Will their plan succeed? Will people take notice? Will their illegal actions count for something? Will blowing up the dam make people think or care about the environment?
In Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves, all of these questions are answered and then some. The radical environmentalist trio of Josh (Jesse Eisenberg), Dena (Dakota Fanning), and Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard) plan to blow up a hydroelectric dam on an Oregon river. All are committed to the cause and are prepared to face the consequences of their actions. It’s dealing with these consequences that are the heart of the movie, although it takes about half the movie to get to the actual blowing up on the dam. This reveals the fatal flaw of the movie: the errors in basic structure and pacing and a disconnected third act turns what could have been a good movie into an adequate one.
The film lacks a concrete set up sequence. As viewers we do not know why the trio wants to blow up the dam, only that they do and only have two things left to get: a boat (which turns out to be aptly named Night Moves) and an additional 500 pounds of fertilizer. The fertilizer scene fails the believability test, especially when Harmon comments that he was having trouble obtaining such an amount without raising suspicion, but supposedly Dena with her fake story about being a farmer on ten acres can.
Where Night Moves succeeds as a film is in a handful of scenes throughout the film. One of the most significant, ominous, and foretelling scenes is when the trio notices a car pull into the parking lot near the dam after they’ve set the timer. The trio goes back to the bomb to deactivate it, although it is unclear if they are worried about there being witnesses or causalities to the explosion. But a handful of great scenes does not make a movie great, a great movie is built from scenes that build upon each other to an explosive (no pun intended) climax.
And there is no explosive climax to Night Moves, although the main event of the third act is in fact jarring. The event is jarring because it does not seem to fit into the tone and mood of the movie or with the characters. If the whole movie was leading up to this moment where one character takes the action he takes, then we needed some hint that this was at least possible or plausible.
At its core, Night Moves has the makings of a good movie exploring the motives of those who commit illegal acts with good intentions and then must face unintended consequences. But its fatal flaws of basic structure and pacing create a hodgepodge of unconnected scenes that hinder the movie’s theme.
