2 Hours 40 Minutes of Drudgery

Rating: 3/10 (17 January 2008)

I love epics from Spartacus to Lawrence of Arabia to Seven Samurai to Citizen Kane. The only thing epic about this movie was it's length. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a virtuoso performance as an amoral man, who over 30 years remains amoral. But what's the point? There is no progression, no growth, no action and not one character to care about. There is nothing in this movie as big as Day-Lewis' performance, and the story remains off balance from start to finish because of it. I found myself wishing I was watching a Ken Burns' documentary on the early days of oil. The music was often atonal and intrusive, and actually lessened what little pleasure I took from this film.
The degradation that follows pursuit of riches was addressed admirably in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," where we see the progression of gold lust turn good friends into crazed enemies. "Madre" showed the joy of becoming rich. "Blood" had no joy. Any fortuitous discovery must be followed with pain.
Finally, there was about as much blood in this movie as there were lines spoken by women; almost none.