Blood and oil

Rating: 7/10 (6 July 2014)

Daniel Day-Lewis plays oil prospector Daniel Plainview a man with his business partner goes looking for oil and finds it. When his partner dies in an accident leaving behind an infant, he raises the boy as his own. Together they go around looking for oil prospects and having a small child helps Plainview buy land cheaply and he goes on to become an oil magnate.
When Day-Lewis is in full flow you will see two veins on his forehead that pump out and display his passion and ruthlessness. However Plainview has demons of his own, in his own words he dislikes other people succeeding and in his new oil field he takes a dislike to Eli the teenage preacher in a god fearing town. Later on he meets a man claiming to be his half brother and this upsets his son who has since become deaf in an accident.
The film strives to be an epic which spans many years but we never understand why Plainview dislikes Eli so much even though Plainview has no time for religion and suspects Eli might be a hypocrite, although his son has taken a shine to Eli's sister who he later marries. At each turn Plainview ignores or embarrasses Eli even when he promised that he would build a church which he does not leading to Eli embarrassing Plainview in a church ceremony.
Although Plainview sent his son away after the accident which made him deaf and later brought him back, its obvious he loves his son but later drives him away and not made clear why. Was it because he did not want his son to become poisoned like he has?
The film deals with the early days of oil prospecting and part of the script is based on testimony given in a congressional hearing. However the film does not fully succeed because it relies too much on its performances than the overall plot arc, although like Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather II, Plainview has been corrupted by his wealth and ends up alone.