Best of 2007

Rating: 10/10 (26 January 2008)

I've only seen Daniel Day-Lewis in three other films and I loved his work in each one of them. Of the four movies I have now seen him in; There Will Be Blood is by far his best one.
Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview. His character starts out as an ordinary man in the late 1800s that is in search of oil. The first fifteen minutes or so of the movie is very interesting for it has no dialog. Rather the film is expressed through the thunderous score by John Greenwood and the actions of a group of men including Daniel who dig deeply into the earth to find oil. With an accidental drop of a heavy metal object, they find their price.
The film then swiftly turns to the turn of the twentieth century. Daniel Plainview has become quite a businessman as an entrepreneur of oil. He gets a tip about an earthquake oil in the middle of nowhere. He checks it out and discovers that he has located a new place to expand his oil empire. Persuading the towns' people with the promise of money, he gets them to leave from their land. He then meets his contender; a young man named Ely (Paul Dano) who claims to be a prophet.
Ely grabs a hold of the towns' people to follow his church while Plainview digs his wells. Ely then soon learns that Plainview is not going to keep his promise of giving the people their money, but to keep it all for himself. Ultimately, it turns into a game between these two men as Ely turns the people against him and Plainview tries to stabilize his power, wells, and reputation. Daniel's dream of finding oil slowly turns against him as he realizes that he can't get enough of the oil and the wealth it can make him. He slowly passes into madness and becomes a cold-blooded murderer against those who stand in his way, hence the title There Will Be Blood.
Daniel Day-Lewis is simply brilliant and nothing short of Oscar worthy. He plays a very frightening character as someone who seeks for riches, but then transforms into someone that anyone would not want to be. He would do anything to get his way, even using his own son H.W. Plainview as a prop to get some sympathy as a "family man". He speaks with a dry monotone, but his eyes hold a cold disdain towards others. As he says straightforwardly to one of the main characters in the film, "I look at people and see nothing worth likingI don't want anyone else to succeed."
Paul Dano plays two roles in the film. Although neither character is in a scene together, he does an excellent job. He is almost the comic relief as Ely, particularly when gives his sermons that are so corny that make me want to roll over with laughter. I'm surprised Paul kept a straight face in some of his scenes he performed in the film.
To me, most movie that are over two and half hours are very long. Well, this movie does not drag one bit; I was engrossed by it from start to finish. Director Paul Thomas Anderson captures the film wonderfully from the distant landscape shots to the intense facial up-closes of the thespians. The works of cinematography, art direction, film and sound editing were all marvelously and worth the Oscars nominations each are given. But the one thing I did not like about this movie was the music. I often felt it drowned the film, particularly in the beginning when Daniel raises his hand up covered with oil. The music was so loud that it reminded me of a tornado alarm going off. Perhaps this was caused by the surround sound in the theater I was in.
Otherwise, I was very impressed with this film. I give this a 10/10. This is the best movie I have seen for 2007.
-This movie has been nominated for eight academy awards including Best Picture.