There Will Be Blood is set on the frontier of California's turn-of-the-century petroleum boom. The story chronicles the life and times of one Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon. When Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there's a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads with his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the holy roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value – love, hope, community, belief, ambition and even the bond between father and son – is imperiled by corruption, deception and the flow of oil.
First of all - let's just say that There Will Be Blood could have easily been called There Will Be Numb Asses. The movie is a little bit longer than 2 1/2 hours. Luckily, it doesn't feel it at all for the first hour and half but then it does kind of slow down a bit before turning really good again. Daniel Day-Lewis is phenomenal. Then again, when is that man not? Think about it. Have you ever see him in a less than stellar role? Anywho - he's awesome and his presence is so commanding that you find yourself not realizing that there isn't even any dialogue for the first 20 minutes of the movie. You're just watching him doing whatever he is doing. It was to the point that by the time he did speak I jumped a little out of shock. This cinematography of this movie is also great. The area where they are drilling is just as much of a character as the actors themselves and it was well caught. The weirdest thing about this movie was the non-stop over the top sound. It was like an orchestra was playing the whole time that they were filming. In any other movie - this would have probably driven me nuts. However, it was great in this movie and you end up liking it. This movie was awesome. I wouldn't go so far as to say the best movie of 2007 like many critics did, but it was definitely up there.
I would strongly recommend people checking this one out. It isn't necessarily mainstream fair, but for those of you in to the somewhat artsy movies - this is a must see.
