An American Epic

Rating: 8/10 (25 December 2013)

The acting is second-to-none, the settings are realistic and beautiful, the characters are deep, but the story lacks a certain zest. The film is almost everything that I heard it to be, but watching the film, I found myself waiting for something to happen. I kept waiting for a certain something in the story that would entertain me as much as the characters themselves did. After a rather lengthy opening sequence with no dialog, the mood of the film is set fairly well. There are essentially two main characters clashing throughout, and mainly the whole movie is the will power of two men fighting. The movie itself is masterful simply by the mere scope of it all.
Daniel Day Lewis once again sets himself as one of the absolute finest actors of my time. The rest of the cast are equally impressive. Paul Dano outstanding in his dual role, and until the story shows that they are two separate people, I believed the young man to be quite psychotic.
Indeed the only place I find fault with this film is in the story itself. While I believe this to be an American Epic film, and would highly encourage a viewing from any movie lover, a single watch is plenty. 8/10 and I will not buy this on DVD or BluRay.