 Tagline: There Will Be Greed. There Will Be Vengeance. This widely acclaimed masterpiece and must see American epic features the Academy Award winning performance of Daniel Day-Lewis (Best Actor, 2007). Daniel Plainview and son are independent oil men, looking for prospects in California at the turn of the 20th century. They are challenged by a young preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), whose own ambition is matched by Plainview's. Their battle forms the center of a scary, darkly comic historical journey into an abyss of madness "There Will Be Blood is Paul Thomas Anderson's epic American nightmare, belching fire and brimstone and damanation to hell. It is, above all, a consummate work of art" (Manahola Dargis, The New York Times). Storyline: The intersecting life stories of Daniel Plainview and Eli Sunday in early twentieth century California presents miner-turned-oilman Daniel Plainview, a driven man who will do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. He works hard but also takes advantage of those around him at their expense if need be. His business partner/son (H.W.) is, in reality, an "acquired" child whose true biological single-parent father (working on one of Daniel's rigs) died in a workplace accident. Daniel is deeply protective of H.W. if only for what H.W. brings to the partnership. Eli Sunday is one in a pair of twins whose family farm Daniel purchases for the major oil deposit located on it. Eli, a local preacher and a self-proclaimed faith healer, wants the money from the sale of the property to finance his own church. The lives of the two competitive men often clash as Daniel pumps oil off the property and tries to acquire all the surrounding land at bargain prices to be able to build a pipeline to the ... Written by Huggo / edited by statmanjeff Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman on June 4, 2008 -- You will never be saved if you reject the blood. You'll get no argument from me as to whether There Will Be Blood deserved to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, but after having finally seen Paul Thomas Anderson's oil epic, I do find myself in agreement that No Country For Old Men was a bit more deserving of the win. There Will Be Blood is a fantastic movie nevertheless, a classic epic of one man's rise to and obsession with power in turn-of-the-century California. With every frame, shot, scene, and sequence comes breathtaking cinematography, first-rate acting, effortless direction, and storytelling at its simplest and finest; a finer film you'll be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. More entertaining and faster-paced, yes, but rarely has a film been made that feels so real as There Will Be Blood. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York), a young prospector in 1898 California, nearly dies while mining for silver, but the resolute Plainview crawls back to town with a broken leg to cash in. So begins a stage of his life where obsession, greed, and ambition slowly but surely wreak havoc on him and those around him. After an accident kills one of his workers at one of his first oil wells, Plainview adopts the man's orphaned son, HW (Dillon Freasier in his first film appearance), and claims him as his own. Several years later, Daniel Plainview is approached by a small-time California rancher named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano, Little Miss Sunshine) who informs him, for a $500 fee, of the presence of oil on his ranch where nothing but weeds thrive. Ultimately, Plainview agrees to prospect the site, his true intentions initially unbeknownst to the rest of the Sunday family. When he makes an offer to buy the ranch, Paul's twin brother Eli (also played by Paul Dano) sees through his scheme and demands $10,000 for the church where he ministers. A deal is worked out, and what follows is a morality tale and an epic journey through the descent into madness that shows how both success and greed can reduce a man to nothing. Even though There Will Be Blood has all of the earmarks of a slow movie, such as long stretches of dialogue, lingering shots, and slow and deliberate camera pans, it is actually anything but. Through the film's strong script, the movie's two-and-one-half hour runtime feels almost as fast as Cloverfield, a film nearly half the length of There Will Be Blood. A Michael Bay film this is most certainly not; in fact, if there was ever an anti-Bay movie based completely on style, this is it. That's no knock on Mr. Bay, whose movies I enjoy a great deal, this is simply intended to provide a contrast between how There Will Be Blood plays out as opposed to flashier movies, but is equally, if not more so, effective and fast-paced nevertheless. There Will Be Blood also showcases some breathtakingly beautiful cinematography, a fact picked up on by the Academy who bestowed upon this film the award for Best Achievement in Cinematography. Viewers of this film are treated to some exciting shots of the harsh, lifeless terrain that surounds the California oil field. Never before did I imagine such a desolate, depressing locale could look so marvelous as it does in this film. Widely known is the fact that Daniel Day-Lewis' portrayal of Daniel Plainview is an excellent one, perhaps, even, one of this finest acting performances in memory (side note: he sounds like Sean Connery with a bit of Jack Nicholson in this film). What is it about the Plainview character that makes this performance so memorable? He is one of the most vile and despicable characters, in my estimation, in cinema history, the experiences and successes of his ventures changing him from a caring, considerate businessman who adopted the orphaned son of an employee to a man whose actions may shock the audience throughout the last half of the film. The name "Daniel Plainview" itself can be interpreted as a description of the character. "Daniel" means "Judged By God," and "Plainview" can be seen as a metaphor for the character's single-mindedness as he moves forward with the singular goal of expanding his wealth and status, regardless of the consequences of his actions on those around him. Indeed, there is no doubt the character will be judged, for he has rejected the blood of the Lord, spilled that of his fellow men, and brought forth the blood of the Earth. I thank God I have none of you in me. There Will Be Blood is one of the best-made movies in recent memory. Despite the power and grace of the film, I was not surprised to learn that it grossed just over $40,000,000 at the box office, and only $302,000 over its opening weekend. This movie is far from a summer blockbuster-style movie and is instead a thinking man's epic and one of the best films of the past several decades. Paramount's Blu-ray release of There Will Be Blood is a solid effort. With a pleasant, film-like image and adequate audio, the disc won't set your home theater ablaze, but what it will do is place you squarely into the middle of the film. The supplemental material is much lighter than what I expected to be included with a film of this calibre, and I would not be surprised to see a special edition release in the not-too-distant-future. Nevertheless, because it is the the movie itself that is key to our enjoyment of Blu-ray, this disc is one well worth owning. Highly recommended. Ending: Paul Thomas Anderson's drama about a miner-turned-ruthless oil tycoon ends in kind of a strange, almost anticlimactic way. After beating Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) to death with a bowling pin, and delivering on the title's promise of blood, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) drops his weapon, sinks to the floor and yells, "I'm finished!" Just what does this simple sentence mean? As short as it is, it means a couple of things. For starters, Plainview has completed his task, meaning the murder of Sunday. Sunday's dead, ergo he has finished killing him. But that's pretty on-the-nose. --- Plainview realizes that he has gone too far. During the film, he commits a number of horrendous acts. He threatens to cut one man's throat while he sleeps. He adopts the son of one of his dead workers in order to look like a family man. He sends this adopted son, H. W. Plainview, away to a school for the deaf. He murders a man, with no witnesses to the crime. And toward the movie's end, after his adopted son returns, Plainview disowns his son when H. W. announces that he'd like to start his own oil company in Mexico. Plainview even mocks H. W.'s deafness. So this time, with Sunday's blood literally on his hands and his butler as a witness to the crime, Plainview realizes that he has overreached himself, and he, and his business, will suffer repercussions. Finally, Plainview is simply tired. After the life he's led, he doesn't want to continue on anymore. This doesn't mean that Plainview is suicidal. It just means that he's done. Cast Notes: Daniel Day-Lewis (Daniel Plainview), Martin Stringer (Silver Assay Worker), Matthew Braden Stringer (Silver Assay Worker), Jacob Stringer (Silver Assay Worker), Joseph Mussey (Silver Assay Worker), Barry Del Sherman (H.B. Ailman), Harrison Taylor (Baby H.W. Plainview), Stockton Taylor (Baby H.W. Plainview), Paul F. Tompkins (Prescott), Dillon Freasier (Young H.W. Plainview), Kevin Breznahan (Signal Hill Man), Jim Meskimen (Signal Hill Married Man), Erica Sullivan (Signal Hill Woman), Randall Carver (Mr. Bankside), Coco Leigh (Mrs. Bankside). IMDb Rating (07/25/14): 9.0/10 from 956,446 users Top 250: #5 IMDb Rating (08/05/11): 9.0/10 from 493,350 users Top 250: #5
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