Not much to like

Rating: 4/10 (12 November 2008)

Other than DDL's performance, which was excellent, I didn't find much to like about this film. It was downright depressing and lacked any theme that I could tell. (Other than watch out for ruthless oil barons and false prophets). I rented this film because it was from a book by Upton Sinclair whom I remembered from his most famous work, "The Jungle." But I didn't like this one. Dano wasn't very compelling as the preacher and the movie didn't explore the reasons behind why Plainview was such a scumbag. Such as for instance flashing back to his childhood to explain how he turned out that way. He briefly mentioned at one point that he generally didn't like people - but there was no explanation as to why.