Wrenched

Nestled within the framework of a larger sympathetic portrait of radical environmentalism, filmmaker ML Lincoln delivers a patchy literary bio of author-guru Edward Abbey (1927-1989), a WWII vet and disenchanted National Park Ranger whose 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang remains a virtual manifesto for activists who embrace sabotage and subversion against construction companies, oil drillers, and other enemies of the wilderness. However, a who-what-when about Abbey is not the aim here; the focus instead is placed on those whose lives he touched (including the real-life individuals who inspired Abbey characters such as George Washington Hayduke and Bonnie Abzug), often disillusioned members of the conservation movement who opted for the direct action of civil disobedience and creative performance/obstructions of road crews rather than yet another Sierra Club powwow. The eco-activist group Earth First! is favorably presented as having been set up for entrapment by the FBI, while more extreme outfits that have committed arson and mass destruction are declared over the line and not what the colorful Abbey would have approved. Interviewees include Robert Redford, publisher/bookseller Ken Sanders, and authors Jack Loeffler, Charles Bowden, and Terry Tempest Williams. A fine documentary on the rise of radical eco-activism, this is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)