There Will Be Blood
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Movie Reviews of There Will Be Blood
Movie Review: TRITE
Summary: 1 Stars
The movie is trite. Yes, good acting, good directing, good camera work, etc; but that doesn't make a Masterpiece or even a great movie. The story: There Will Be Blood--you will find such stories in every sidestreet bar. So what makes a great movie? Welles understtod. Humanity. The movie had no humanity. You didn't take anything away with you you didn't already know. It didn't have "Rosebud". Movie Review: There Will Be ... Extras?
Summary: 4 Stars
Daniel Day Lewis rightly deserved his Oscar for his performance as oil-man Daniel Plainview in this stunning film. The casting was perfect including Dillon Freasier as his adopted son H.W. As a young actor, I hope that we get to see more of him in the future.
With only a modest filmography, Paul Dano has already has proved his incredible acting abilities with nominations not just for this film but for other roles including last year's hit Little Miss Sunshine. His calm yet at other times ferocious nature as the local evangelical preacher sent shivers down my spine!
Overall, it is a wholly American film that recalls the nostalgic era of "big oil" in the early 1900's. If you are looking for intense action or special effects, this movie may not be for you. It is long and drawn out but worth every minute if you are interested in the early days of U.S. oil drilling.
The only reason I gave this movie 4 out of 5 stars was because the BluRay disc did not come with many extras. I was disappointed that there was no commentary by director Paul Thomas Anderson or any special features involving the rest of the cast and crew. Certainly a behind-the-scenes documentary would have been sufficient. Unfortunately, the consumer is only left with two alternate scenes, a 15-minute photo montage and a 26-minute silent film from 1923, "The Story of Petroleum."
Excellent sound, cinematography, music and high-caliber acting make this a MUST HAVE for any BluRay enthusiast.
Movie Review: Citizen Plainview
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie will be known as one of the greats, one for the ages. Like other great films; Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey etc, it is not for everyone. The pacing is deliberate, the characters complicated, the music bizarre, the moral of the story cloudy. But what a story.
We follow the career of Daniel Plainview- misanthrope, miser, oil-man- as he gains a fortune and loses everything that makes it worth having. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance is astounding, one of the most complete transformations in modern cinema. He perfectly captures the few moments of peace and humanity that Plainview has before rejecting human-kind as imperfect. And Paul Dano as Plainveiw's nemesis, the self-made (or self-deluded) preacher Eli, holds his own against the veteran actor. On one level, There Will Be Blood can be seen as the struggle between religion and capitalism, a clash of the titans with Plainview and Eli locked in a battle from which neither can back down. Very few films create such perfectly crafted characters with such real, moving and dramatic conflict between them. Their battle is at once epic and relatable as they continue to one-up the other in a series of betrayals and humiliations.
With such over-the-top performances, the whole movie could easily have degenerated into a camp-fest, but the restraint and calm of the cinematography and the deliberate pacing balances everything. Under the painstaking direction of Paul Thomas Anderson the film becomes a series of peaks and valleys, with periods of peace and violence as perfect as a Beethoven symphony.
But again, Beethoven isn't for everyone. And if none of the above appeals to you, by all means, please skip it. At nearly three hours it would be a painful experience to anyone who wasn't in the mood for it. I was awed by There Will Be Blood, I think its one of the greatest American films ever made. But its not the movie for a night of relaxing in front of the tv. There's a time for mindless entertainment, and a time for something more. When you want something more- then give There Will Be Blood a try.
Movie Review: An extraordinary American story
Summary: 5 Stars
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis), a man filled with hatred and disdain for the human race, spends his life sucking oil from the ground and amassing a fortune. His power and wealth allow him to look down on the rest of humanity, but cannot protect him from his own self-contempt.
Paul Thomas Anderson's epic film is a deeply cynical meditation on two forces that defined the rise of America, entrepreneurialism and religion. It features great performances and a magnificent evocation of the oil fields of the West during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are many fascinating aspects of this film, but the most interesting may be Plainview's lifelong enmity toward the charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), whose flock represents for Plainview all that is gullible and foolish in people. The two men humiliate each other in several remarkable scenes, most notably the one in which Plainview is coerced into joining the church in order to gain some land rights; it's a tour de force performance from Day Lewis. Jonny Greenwood's extraordinary, unique soundtrack is unexpected but totally appropriate. I'm sure that this rich film will reward many repeat viewings.
Movie Review: Entertaining but not a truly great movie
Summary: 3 Stars
This is an entertaining OK movie. Not one of the greats as many previous reviewers have written. I won't go through the story-line because others have done a good job on that. And yes the cinematography is beautiful. But I have two problems with this film. Firstly, the story itself. OK, two rival characters each tormented by their own obsessions set in an epic historical background. But so what? We've seen that stuff so many times before. It's what Hollywood's about. Which makes it too self-consciously an attempt at 'greatness.' And that's where it goes wrong. Foreign films don't make this mistake the way we do in America. They convey a message and then let the viewer decide whether the movie's great. It's like we're constantly being reminded "this is a great movie, guys." Secondly, I have a problem with Day Lewis himself and found the preacher more convincing. Day Lewis is too perfect. He's such a competent method actor that I found myself wondering - maybe one day we can programme a robot to act perfectly and we won't need actors. Like Meryl Streep. For me when you see a truly great actor perform not only must they be competent but they must seem human. Bogart plays hundreds of different characters convincingly but you somehow can see Bogart's soul shining through as well as the soul of the characters he acts. Day Lewis is a great vehicle but who is Day Lewis himself? Having seen many films of his I still don't know. It sounds strange but he's almost so good at acting that he seems empty himself.