A pipeline in the texas desert was the objective. The organisation consists of a motley crew of climate activists, outsiders, and individuals whose commitment to the project at hand is rooted in something very personal. How to Blow Up a Pipeline skillfully uses flashbacks to show how these characters came together and how they truly feel about what they are doing. The plan is central to everything, but there is no defined hierarchy, so everyone in the ensemble feels equally important. How to Blow Up a Pipeline investigates the consequences of the climate issue in novel ways as the plan is carried out, highlighting the seriousness of the crisis and the deeply personal toll it takes on everyone it affects.

The movie How to Blow Up a Pipeline is based on the same-named book by Andreas Malm. In the manifesto, Malm promotes sabotage while criticising the pacifism of the climate activist movement and denouncing climate fatalism. In the end, Malm contends that sabotage is an appropriate solution to the current dilemma. How to Blow Up a Pipeline does a superb job of incorporating the points from Malm's book into a story that yet manages to feel like a sermon on the condition of the situation today while also being utterly fascinating. This is in part due to the film's director, Daniel Goldhaber, who created the script with jordan Sjol and Ariela Barer, the latter of whom plays the character Xochitl, as well as jordan Sjol.

The movie is environmentally sensitive even in the framing of many of its images; during a lengthy flashback, two people have a cigarette as tall metal towers and pipes loom behind them. Another presentation pits a metal plant or facility against a freezing landscape while Michael (Forrest Goodluck) is framed against what appears to be an impassable barrier. The tower is spouting flames. The lack of a defined hierarchy within the group also discreetly emphasises how everyone will eventually suffer from the climate problem in some way.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline is surprisingly personal in spite of this. A sense of immediacy permeates the film's close-up and wide framings of humans against the desolate texas desert, adding to the suspense of its thriller components. Each character feels fully developed by the time the group is really attempting to blow up the pipeline, which is an accomplishment for such a big ensemble working against the clock. The most moving parts of How to Blow Up a Pipeline don't stem from its genre components. Instead, the success of the genre aspects can be attributed to the film's investigation of the many and varied ways in which individuals can become radicalised.