Impeccably acted drivel

Rating: 3/10 (8 August 2008)

It start well enough with Daniel Day-Lewis' character Daniel Plainview staking early claims to oil rights in undeveloped places, whilst extolling family values to the locals, in a curious Cornish accent.
Unravelled , I think is the best way to describe the development of the character through the movie.
At the end of the movie I felt strangely cheated, not only is plausibility stretched to breaking point, but we never see any consequences for the character's many misdeeds.
I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that the movie charts the rise and fall of the character in perhaps a similar way to Anderson's Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights. The way up, addictions, hangers on, the way down. Crash.
A very very long vehicle for an incomplete story.