Trying to decide what direction to take when expressing an opinion about a film that is so different and so intriguing is tough to do. Random thoughts follow.
Let's get Daniel Day-Lewis's performance out of the way. He's remarkable here as Daniel Plainview. He's intelligent ruthless vicious and greedy. There's literally nothing to like about him. Paul Dano is Eli Sunday a crooked preacher who is the primary rival of Plainview. Eli is also unlikeable. He's greedy manipulative and naive. The story centers around these two characters and their mistrust and hatred of one another.
Plainview has a son and there is an event that occurs around the halfway point of the film that builds some sympathy for Plainview but we end up hating him even more as Plainview rejects his son because he will be unable to run Plainview's company when he's dead. It's really cruel but it makes perfect sense. From what we know about Plainview it's entirely consistent with his character's traits.
The story starts humbly with Plainview digging for gold and growing his oil business to the point where he can have anything he wants. However what he wants is to destroy his competition. Competition is what drives him. Some will watch this film and decide that this is a commentary on the ills of Capitalism and Religion. Those that pay less attention will believe it to be a finger-pointing parable about the evils of "Big Oil". But this is a story about a man who's competitive spirit could ultimately destroy him.
The film is beautiful to look at and is appropriately slow moving. It takes it's time to build and when it does things get very tense. The ending is sudden but appropriate and allows the viewer to finish Plainview's life story on their own.--wbeehler Saturday August 27 2011 9:23:08 AM

“I. Drink. Your! Milkshake! I DRINK IT UP”

There will be blood is a masterpiece one of my favorite and one of the greatest movies of all time. The beginning had me skeptical at first I had read and heard a lot of great things about it. After the first 30 minutes of the film I was hooked on it. The story and writing is great it’s historically accurate with the acting, costumes, and really everything else. The acting is phenomenal from Daniel- Day- Lewis, he did the greatest performance of all time his performance really was completely perfect. Paul Dano was also surprisingly fantastic he should have won or at least been nominated for a supporting actor Oscar. It’s directed very well by P. T. Anderson( This was the first movie I’ve seen of his and I really want to watch more of his films) he was very passionate about making this film and you can tell. The cinematography is great like the wide shots of the mountains and the oil plant being on fire while
Daniel sits in the mud watching. The score is thrilling and very well made it fits the movie very well. So many great quotes and shots in this movie Almost every scene is memorable.
The minute the film ended it was thinking about watching it agin. The ending is fantastic one of the best ending to a film ever! I love that the last line of the movie was “ I’m finished “ after all of Plainview’s choices through out the movie. Overall it’s a close to perfect movie with the greatest performance of all time that is really unforgettable. 2007 really popped out two of the best movie of all time, No Country For Old Men and There Will be blood I honestly don’t know which one I like better.

( 10 out of 10)

***Weighty, morose period drama with complex characters and Daniel Day-Lewis***

In the early 20th century, an industrious prospector in Southern California, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), becomes a shrewd oil magnate, whose journey is paralleled with a dubious Pentecostal pastor of a remote church, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano).

“There Will Be Blood” (2007) is a one-of-a-kind period drama with Western elements. It’s arty and the furthest thing from a conventional blockbuster. You have to be in the mode for a deep, epic flick like this in order to appreciate it. The contemporaneous “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and “No Country for Old Men” are good comparisons.

Whilst the story and main characters are simple on the surface, they go deep and there are many gems to mine: What good is success if you have no one to love and enjoy it with? Is Daniel a sociopath or a quality individual who acquires sociopathic tendencies because his choices put him on the road of madness? Was Eli a “false prophet”? If so, was he always a con or did he become one?

Why is Eli paralleled with Daniel? Does Daniel have the capacity for genuine love? Does he mean what he ultimately says to HW or are they words born from a sense of betrayal? Would a sane person rashly resort to murder? Is there a positive protagonist in the movie? If so, who and why? If not, why not?

The film runs 2 hours, 38 minutes, and was shot in Southern Cal and Texas (Shafter & Marfa); and Lakewood, Washington (Thornewood Castle).

GRADE: A-/B+

I remember reading about just how much money Rockefeller was making at the height of his prowess and the sums were eye watering. His Standard Oil company is referenced in this powerful drama with Daniel Day Lewis as “Plainview”. He’s a prospector looking for silver but who has a bit of a fall and discovers that there is something much more valuable and plentiful - if you know how to find it, He gradually buys up leases and together with his stalwart “Fletcher” (Ciarán Hinds) and young son “H.W.” (Dillon Freasier) starts to develop his business with a view to building a pipeline of over one hundred miles to reach the sea. Along the way, their lives are fraught with dangers and tough choices have to be made - especially when an accident at one of the wells renders the young boy deaf. It’s at this remote site that “Plainview”meets his nemesis. Not in a competitive, business, fashion - but in a puritanical Christian one. The son of a local homesteader is aspiring preacher “Eli” (Paul Dano) and the remainder of the film sees the one trying to humiliate and outmanoeuvre the other and disclaim each’s strongly held values. It’s a slow burn, this film, but DDL is on super form as a man striving for success but for it’s own purpose. His wealth does not bring him contentedness nor, for that matter, does it bring joy to anyone else. This also demonstrates just how poor rural parts of the USA were at the turn of the 20th century, and at how vulnerable the population were to exploitation and the venality of the oilmen. The photography is immersive and the pace works well in drawing us into the perfectly constructed characterisations that were the natural successors to the earlier pioneers. I didn’t love the conclusion. It seemed a little unnecessary, underwhelming - rushed even. The last ten minutes have an intensity of their own that though they well illustrate the skill of Dano and DDL, they just didn’t quite wrap things up as I might have liked. Still, it’s a great piece of cinema with some strong writing underpinning a series of lusts….

A hypnotic flight into the darkness of the soul and how people hide themselves away. A masterfully directed feat, There Will Be Blood shows the very limits of selfishness and greed which are further encapsulated by Day-Lewis’ mind-blowing and unique performance of which could be easily called the greatest of all time. Every person who worked on this seem as if they are masters of their crafts, even the child actors, whose performances are stunning. Day-Lewis has excellent chemistry with Paul Dano’s egoistical preacher, who was very much snubbed for the best actor category. With some of the best cinematography ever brought to film, this is truly one of the all time greats.