Monday, January 7, 2008

There Will Be Blood Review



Daniel Day-Lewis gives the best performance of the year for 2 hours and 20 minutes here. Note, though, that the film holds a 2:38 running time. For me the film's critical final section so radically fell apart in tone, performance and style that it's ...(read more)hard for me to review a movie that I thought was otherwise amazing. I found myself completely engrossed in the story of Daniel Plainview and his growing oil empire and absolutely fascinated by his malicious/malevolent character. The period setting is well met by PT Anderson as well. The scenes depicting the actual construction and use of oil drilling equipment, accompanied by the film's grating but effective score, is strangely fascinating. Of special note are the films opening 15 mintues, depicted almost entirely without words they show Day-Lewis' earliest oil projects and work tremendously well. I do have to give a caveat that I found Paul Dano intolerable. I loathed him in Little Miss Sunshine and feel precisely the same here (sidenote: why the hell didn't they age him for a 16 year jump in time...?). Not really sure who would have pulled off this part better...but Dano isn't really the answer. Still for the bulk of it this is a truly fascinating character study that really blows a good deal of it's momentum in it's climactic act.

Overall Score: 8/10

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