‘They’re going to call us terrorists because we’re doing terrorist stuff,’ quips Sasha Lane’s climate crusader in a film that isn’t afraid to cause controversy by aligning itself with those taking protest to the next level. This suitably incendiary, surprisingly nail-biting indie from Cam director Daniel Goldhaber is based on Andreas Malm’s 2021 non-fiction book, which argues that sabotage and property destruction should be considered legitimate tactics in the pursuit of environmental justice.

It brings together a fantastic young cast, including co-writer Ariela Barer, The Revenant’s Forrest Goodluck, and Jayme Lawson from The Woman King. They play members of an eight-person crew who gather to build a bomb that will blast through an oil pipeline in west Texas while trying to avoid blowing themselves up in the process. These twentysomethings come from all walks of life: some are university educated, some clean houses, while another (played by Jake Weary) seems more of a stars-and-stripes military type. The film fills in their varying motivations, which range from devastating health issues brought about by pollution, to anxiety about their futures.

Fuelled by a darkly foreboding and jittery electro score, How To Blow Up A Pipeline melds its indie sensibilities and aesthetic with the tension and potential explosiveness of a Michael Mann heist film. It takes an interesting, unusual and genuinely quite exciting approach to the exploration of its issues, and creates characters that you come to care about. Whether or not you think the film is actually advocating blowing stuff up, it undoubtedly calls for a more assertive approach. The group are portrayed as anguished, ordinary heroes who decide to fight back because they feel, quite rightly, like the more polite approach to protest just isn’t working.

How To Blow Up A Pipeline screens at GFT, Glasgow, Thursday 2 & Friday 3 March, as part of Glasgow Film Festival.