What?

Rating: 6/10 (31 July 2013)

During my viewing of this film, I didn't know exactly what to make of it. The first hour and a half are fantastic. Loved it. The last hour is what killed the film for me. Paul Thomas Anderson's films seem to run far too long on scripts that play sort of like old Scorsese films; movies where the characters live life, not progress through a plot. While it is totally OK to do this, the film has to be able to hold the interest of the audience. Taxi Driver and Raging Bull both achieved this, There Will Be Blood did not. The last hour was full of confusing scenes that didn't match the tone of the first part of the movie. The conversation at the end between Eli and Daniel left me scratching my head. Why did Daniel act so strangely? Another little issue I had was that the music wasn't used in a way that added to the film. Instead, it left me wondering why it was being used in scenes that would have benefited from dead silence and the music itself wasn't that good either. Day- Lewis most definitely deserved the Oscar but the movie is hardly the best film of the decade. Too long, tonally inconsistent, and, quite frankly, a bit pretentious. Maybe it will get better on repeat viewings?