by tt stern-enzi

Any review of the new Gus Van Sant film Promised Land must begin and end with Matt Damon. As star and screenwriter, Damon and the all-American promise that he exudes recalls film stars of  earlier times – Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper, for instance. Not quite in the realm of John Wayne, but really it is Stewart that Damon seems to channel. Although his Stewart is a contemporary figure, decidedly all-American, but geared towards the late century/new millennium. Damon, like many of his peers, has been cursed with good genes, so good, in fact, it is difficult to gaze upon him up there on the screen and feel, with any real certainty that you are looking at a grown man, complete with the battle scars of a hard knock life. His fresh unlined face, twinkling eyes, and chiseled physique generally fails to inspire, at least in me, the notion that I’m watching a guy who, if transported back to a few decades, could have been dropped into Mean Streets, The Conversation, Taxi Driver, or one of the Godfather films (imagine Damon as Tom Hagen – can you, really?). That’s not a knock at all on his work as an actor; it speaks more to the experience rooted in his bearings as a man.

To be fair, though, I never doubt him for a minute when I hear his voice, which is deep and weary and honest, honest to God, in the emotion it conveys, although it is not terribly distinct, in and of itself. Damon’s is not the voice of an animated character in some blockbusting family friendly adventure ride of a film. It is not full of blustery theatrics. No, his voice is earnest and sure and quietly real. It is the voice you want to hear on the other end of the phone during one of those calls when all you want is reassurance.

In another world, a too-close parallel to our own, Damon would be Captain America to George Clooney’s Iron Man (and if I’m going whole hog with this brand new reconceptualization of The Avengers, let’s say that Brad Pitt would be Thor). Damon’s all-American Captain wouldn’t have to strain for that sense of gee-whiz charisma drawn from our World War II fighting spirit, plus as we’ve seen in the Bourne films, he could definitely handle the kick-ass aspects of the job. I would argue that Damon’s Captain America might more naturally align with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight (why, oh, why does everything have to go there?), simply because Damon fulfills an idea of the American promise. He is the honest striver without the self-righteous bent. He is good and true without elevating himself to sainthood. He does the good deed without asking to be considered a good man right after the fact.

All of which makes him absolutely perfect for the role he has written for himself in Promised Land (yes, I know it has taken me awhile to get around to the film – thanks for bearing with me). His Steve Butler works for a natural gas conglomerate that swoops into middle American communities, offers landowners money and opportunity (shades of a brand-new American Dream, updated to this new day and age), and does so with sincerity that comes from someone who has had to make the tough choice to move on from a dying myth into the harsh contemporary reality. Steve Butler is a guy we can believe in. He’s buying and selling us for pennies on the dollar.

Damon has written the role to play to his strength and its a beautiful bit of self-awareness on his part. He knows himself better than maybe any performer out there at the moment. He’s the star most likely to walk among us, to really be like us, and no one has done this, not in this way, since Jimmy Stewart, but Stewart never took control of his persona in the way that Damon has. Damon exudes earnestness the way Denzel breathes righteousness and Morgan Freeman calms the wildness in the wildest human animal.

The problem that undercuts the film is that Damon (and screenwriter/co-star John Krasinski) fail to instill the same integrity in the issue at the heart of the story. Promised Land is about fracking (the process of drilling into the ground to extract natural gas, which has the unfortunate side effect of contaminating soil and water deposits) and the ongoing battles between natural gas companies and environmental groups with farmers and landowners caught in the middle. What little we know about fracking comes from political commentary where the idea is introduced and then swallowed up in technical jargon and ideological dogma and sadly, the film does little to clarify the terms or the stakes.

But we want an answer. We want to know the truth because Damon makes us believe that the truth is out there. And it very well may be, but it is not in this film. And even though Promised Land fails to deliver us, I’m willing to wager that we will still be follow Matt Damon on to the next journey. We still have faith in him.