Had This Is Not a Drill, the new documentary from Oren Jacoby (Sister Rose’s Passion), premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last fall, it would have played as an inspiring story of three grassroots environmentalists taking on Big Oil, offering optimistic examples of individual courage and collective determination in the face of endlessly funded and institutionally supported adversaries. 

Alas, This Is Not a Drill did not premiere at the Telluride Film Festival last fall. And whether or not you recognize the specific campaigns and causes advocated for by these grassroots environmentalists, you probably have access to newspapers. Therefore, you know that a well-funded right-wing political movement and an unscrupulous and single-minded leader can, in mere months, wipe out decades of incremental regulatory improvements. 

Jacoby’s film still believes in the work done by its subjects and in the overall principles it’s espousing, but it can’t fully pretend that the second Trump administration isn’t happening. Ostensibly presenting as a snapshot of triumph, postscripts and footnotes tacked on to the end of the documentary have transformed it into a portrait of the fragility of progress. While that’s actually much more realistic and fascinating, there’s no way for an 80-minute documentary completed within the first eight months of this administration to do justice to the pragmatism. 

This Is Not a Drill isn’t Pollyanna-ish or naive, nor is it wrong to maintain some measure of hope; what else can you do? But the resulting film now feels hollow and insufficiently explored, on top of suffering from structural flaws that would have been problematic under the best of circumstances.

Set primarily in the early 2020s, This Is Not a Drill introduces us to three heroes. Justin J. Pearson is a recent college graduate living at home. When an oil company announces plans to construct a pipeline going under/through a historically Black, economically disadvantaged area of Memphis, Pearson finds his calling. The son of a teacher and a preacher, he leads a diverse coalition to oppose the pipeline and fight against the creep of environmental racism. (Even if you don’t remember the pipeline case, you’ll recognize Pearson as one of the three members of the Tennessee House of Representatives briefly expelled in 2023 for participating in a gun control rally.)

Roishetta Ozane is a mother of six who moved her family to Louisiana only to immediately face the devastating impacts from multiple unprecedented hurricanes. When she begins to wonder about the connections between the oil refineries literally in her backyard and the storms, she launches a crusade to educate herself and those around her about climate change.

Sharon Wilson used to work for the oil industry in Texas, but she quit and moved to a rural part of the state. Then fracking swept the region. When the water from her pipes starts coming out black, Sharon becomes the industry’s worst nightmare, a woman with a fancy infrared camera, a blog, a YouTube channel and a desire to track the release of methane and spread the word about its consequences. 

Each of the three main characters in This Is Not a Drill is a compelling illustration of a different sort of activism. Justin is dynamic and passionate, aware of the power of community and willing to go door-to-door to spread a message. Rioshetta has an insatiable curiosity, and her transformation even in the time the documentary follows her is astonishing as she learns about lobbying and outreach. And Sharon? She’s just pissed off, especially when she starts getting death threats, using the power of the internet to spread her message in places the oil company can’t impede.

These Davids facing the ultimate corporate Goliath are connected in a big-picture sense, but they aren’t directly connected. Even in the one or two instances where they occupy the same protest, Jacoby can’t or doesn’t bring them together. 

The stories are separate, but they’ve been intercut together in ways that blur the passing of time without really building momentum. The environmental racism that’s at the heart of Justin’s advocacy is important but not as central to Roishetta’s, and it’s barely a consideration for Sharon, which makes it hard for a cohesive argument to unfold. 

Perhaps sensing that the pieces aren’t fully coming together, Jacoby introduces but barely utilizes a secondary thread involving a group of Rockefeller heirs who are the very opposite of Davids, but are using their Goliath bank accounts to fund underdog causes. None of these Rockefeller heirs emerges as a real character, and the documentary is fuzzy on whether they’re providing financial assistance to all three of our heroes or none. Every minute the camera is on one of them, it’s not on Justin, Roishetta or Sharon.

Then in the last 20 minutes, Al Gore pops up to give his seal of approval mostly for Justin’s anti-pipeline work, telling us: “It has fallen to the grassroots activists to speak up with the voice of sanity.” The documentary makes that point just fine without Gore coming in to actually say the words.

And then there’s what we know about 2025 and mass deregulation, which the documentary can’t deny and can’t engage with.

This Is Not a Drill ends up feeling inadequately shaped, delivering a message that would have been simplistic but admirably hopeful last year. It’s still admirably hopeful, but ill-adapted to the realities of 2025.