This is one of the greatest performances I've seen in a long time; it is so great that it is absolutely terrifying at times.

Rating: 9/10 (17 May 2008)

Daniel Day-Lewis has got to be one of the most dedicated actors of our time, giving us one great performance after another particularly in these four; "My Left Foot", "In the Name of the Father", "Gangs of New York" and now "There Will be Blood" in his darkest role ever. One a whole his performance in this film reminded me of Orson Wells from the great "Citizen Kane".
This is one of the greatest performances I've seen in a long time; it is so great that it is absolutely terrifying at times. For insistence there is a scene where his competition is trying to buy him out and tells Plainview that he can spend more time with his son but Plainview feels that he's trying to tell him how to raise his family and he says the following: "One night, I'm gonna come inside your house, wherever you're sleeping, and I'm gonna cut your throat." Now that just put chills down my spine and the way he says it with that 'John Huston' kind-of accent is just brilliant. There is also a great scene where he is burying someone in the middle of nowhere in order since he felt that this person was after his money. It just simply reminded me of Humphrey Bogart in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" when trying to kill Curtin, looking out for his share of the gold along with some other scenes since the director (Paul Thomas Anderson) went to sleep every night watching "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" while filming "There Will Be Blood", and you can tell.
The film basically is about a man who is looking for silver but instead finds oil and is now determined to be the best in the business and make sure that he ranks on top and above the others along with his partner H.W. Plainview, his young son. In the process he finds difficulties in gaining all the land he desires and in building his pipeline. Every single scene is extremely well made and shows us Plainview's ruthlessness slowly turning into madness.
One of the film's finest scenes is the opening scene when Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is on his own in the middle of nowhere and is trying to wrest silver from the earth with a pick and shovel and a stick of dynamite. There is no music in that scene, you just here the sound of the pick hitting the rock and Plainview moving around in the hole and it works perfectly. Not to mention the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous in almost every scene.
This film is defiantly film making at its best but it could have been a lot better since it had quite a few flaws in it and the major flaw is the annoying Eli Sunday (played by Paul Dano from "Little Miss Sunshine"). I didn't care one bit for his performance and in fact it even got on my nerves at times, especially his 'church scene' where he 'casts the devil out of people' in his little chapel.
This is Paul Thomas Anderson in his finest hour as a director, his best film since "Boogie Nights" one of the best films of 1997 since I wasn't a fan of his last 2 films: "Punch Drunk Love" & "Magnolia".