A long way to go for not very much........

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2008)

What can I say about a film such as "There Will Be Blood"? Consummate acting by principles Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. Beautiful cinematography and devoted, visionary direction by Paul Thomas Anderson. It is a very nicely done film by people who think they are really plumbing the depths of reality and making a profound statement about American society. The problem is that this story is a badly dated allegory by Upton Sinclair about the corrupt nature of American capitalism and its doomed partnership with popular religion. These strange bedfellows form an uneasy partnership based upon their mutual goal of exploiting the masses for their own profit. But the ruthless, competitive nature of capitalism is prophesied as eventually destroying its religious partner once it has outlived its usefulness, or rather once capitalism itself has outlived its usefulness, they will both destroy each other, thus fulfilling the hoped-for leftist apocalypse that will usher in a new age of altruistic socialism where past exploitation is replaced by the communist ideal. Of course, this allegory does not include the happy ending, just the destruction of the demonized institutions of capitalism and religion. I can only release a deep sigh of boredom over this artistically superior but misguided attempt to resurrect the leftist dream of western society's demise well after the leftist ideal itself has already self-destructed. If you are inspired by this sort of dated propaganda, you'll undoubtedly see this film as an unqualified masterpiece. For the rest of us, it merely amounts to a bleak, obscure story about a bunch of miserably corrupt people leading meaningless, mutually destructive lives. The big message to all of us is OIL=EVIL. Got it, people? Very good! Just remember that oil, competition, and religion are the sources of all the evil in the world and you will be on the communist road to utopia. Yippee!