I was disappointed

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2008)

Maybe rack it up to all the hype, but this movie didn't meet my expectations. Agreed that DDL's acting was superb, and Paul Dano and Dillon Freasier also turned in really convincing performances.
You should expect to sit through 2 1/2 hours of a character study, which is what I was expecting. But, I thought this study could have been done better than it was. Two specific examples: 1) there were things that Daniel Plainview SAID were part of his personality, but I would have liked to see more supporting situations in the movie to prove them; and 2) I felt PTA could have given the audience more insight into WHY Plainview was the way he was.
If you liked The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, you will like this movie. The pacing was similar, and you lazily follow the characters through subtle developments over a long time. I really appreciated what PTA was trying to do with this, but I think it could have been done even better than it was.
A minor aside, I was a bit distracted by the soundtrack that often sounded like a clip from the TV show "Lost".