Uneven, morally blank film with high production values.

Rating: 4/10 (26 March 2008)

If this is your kind of film, is a film that is worth seeing in the theatre. If you remember the old film GIANT with Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean, this film is similar in the huge vistas and visual scope that is so effective on the big screen. It also covers the span of twenty years or more. Like Giant, it also has some performance unevenness (but Giant was much better balanced than this). This is also the story of an oil man in late 1800s California, a real scrapper and wheeler-dealer, so it is very much one man's story.
Daniel Day Lewis does his usual searing portrayal, but it is seriously marred by his vocal choice to imitate John Huston. It is very distracting, and I and many others found ourselves thinking "whose voice is that" throughout the film. It is such a specific voice to imitate. It's a big role, tempestuous and cranky and on the edge, and that takes it to the edge, and at least one friend found his performance ultimately too hammy. I thought it was pretty true to the character he and the director had created. But his is a bravura stage performance while everyone else is doing this modern blasé under-acting. (That is a directing problem of balancing performances.) Weaker, commercial actors in supporting roles.
Several actor friends and I agreed that this is definitely best picture worthy. As for Lewis, an Oscar worthy ROLE, but maybe not an Oscar worthy performance. (I JUST figured out why... his character doesn't change! We meet him fully formed and the same as the end.) An American actor doing this same performance would have been slammed by every critic  he gets an award.
The film is long, 2.5 hours, but it breezes by and never felt long to me. One friend thought it dragged, but she doesn't like to sit down. It actually feels as if it should have been a longer film that was cut down, because near the end, there seemed to be a few pieces missing. Perhaps it shouldn't have been cut, but, like GIANT, it needed an intermission?
What is great here is that while GIANT focused on the melodrama of the family and the emotional workings, this film is much grittier. With almost no dialogue in the first twenty minutes, we have a grimy, working man's view of the way these early oil men worked alone and in small teams in the holes, in the mud, in the oil. This is a working man's film, a man's film, and I recommended it to my father. There are almost no women in this film, and they are completely tangential. Pretty true to life for the 1800s. (That's Hollywood in 2007... the only significant female role is under 14 years old.)
The art direction and cinematography here are top level. The exacting detail of the working conditions, the lifestyle, the problems of the work, is what raises this film up as if it were a documentary of live history. It says volumes without words, and that is great film-making. This also has a really interesting score that grows and changes throughout. It incorporates "noises" in a musical way that is surprising but makes organic sense and I think that is part of why the film moves so well.
The film is based on a novel by Upton Sinclair, and it is really surprising that this is not being made more of in the publicity. I guess they're afraid our national literacy is so low that people would just say "upton who?" Sinclair had a very dark world view, and it shows especially in the portrayal of religion. Unfortunately, I think the casting of the role of the young pastor is very weak. This actor doesn't seem to understand his role; no glimmer that spiritual refection and humility can come from a position of strength and passion. Again, no real growth in the portrayal of this character (and no age makeup at the end he still looks 16). This all throws the strength and focus of the film back to Lewis.
The middle of the story has some nice twists, and perhaps the strongest interactions. Not for everyone, it is a natural fit for the folks who liked 3:10 to Yuma, or classic westerns. If this is your kind of film, it is worth seeing on the big screen.