Extremely disappointing film

Rating: 1/10 (23 May 2008)

My wife and I just endured this 150-minute awful film. The first hour was not too bad, with a probably very realistic look at how crude (no pun intended) and difficult finding and extracting oil was in the American Southwest in the early 1900s. Daniel Day-Lewis does turn in an outstanding performance as the central figure, self-made oil man Daniel Plainview. But after the first hour, the film spirals down continuously revealing the deep personality problems of Daniel, his son HW, and the young preacher Eli Sunday. And the background music is the pits!! In nearly all movies, the background music enhances the experience, or at worst does very little. This is the glaring exception. We were very disappointed in the film.