I’m not surprised that the documentary “Gashole” is screening this week at the half-renovated Hi-Pointe instead of at a suburban multiplex or a hipster arthouse like the Tivoli. This chilling film is about alternative-fuel technologies for which people have been murdered.

“Murder” is an inflammatory charge, and this is an inflammatory film. But if I could wave a magic wand, I’d require every American citizen to see it and judge for themselves.

Granted, this analysis of soaring gas prices doesn’t pretend to be even-handed–it’s clearly on the side of the conspiracy theorists who’ve been shouting at deaf ears that this country is essentially owned and run by oil companies. A more commercially viable film, or a network news program like “60 Minutes,” might concede that it’s somewhat interesting that our president and vice president and secretary of state are all veterans of the oil industry and that these people are waging a war in the heart of the world’s oil fields–but hey, that doesn’t prove anything.

This film is for the grown-ups who are already ticked off about the inarguable realities and want to chart a new path. Common sense–and consensus science–tells us that we can’t rely on fossil fuels to power passenger cars for more than a few more decades, let alone indefinitely.

If wealthy countries can’t wean themselves off gas-powered cars and transition to mass transit, one alternative is to improve fuel efficiency. “Gashole” revives the urban legend that the technology already exists to power our cars with water vapor–and it provides hard evidence that the legend is true. For instance, we learn about a young fellow named Tom Ogle, who built a steam-enhanced car in the ’70s, publicly demonstrated that it could get more than 100 miles on a gallon of gas–and soon was found dead on the side of a lonely road near Las Vegas.

He wasn’t the first. Rudolf Diesel, for whom the original alternative engine is named, announced a plan to run vehicles on peanut oil–right before he mysteriously died.

Yet hydrogen, fuel cells, vegetable oil, solar power and even sugar cane are being used to power “experimental” cars all over the world. The movie argues that the impetus for adopting these technologies on a wide scale is being blocked by the oil companies.

Duh.

Those oil companies are big political contributors, TV advertisers, and retirement-fund components. So if ordinary joes and janes are sick of handing their paychecks and their military-age children to the oil companies, they have to go to weird movie screenings or protest rallies and rub elbow patches with the demographic that talk radio dismisses as latte-sipping elitists.

Here’s your chance: “Gashole” was such a hit last weekend, that it will return Friday the 20th through Sunday the 22nd. Tickets are $8.75. You can get more info at the Website of the sponsoring organization, www.stlouisgreencom, or at the official movie site, www.gasholemovie.com.