The Most Overrated Film of 2007!

Rating: 1/10 (21 January 2008)

Paul Thomas Anderson once again fashions an original and ambitious film of layers filled with challenging themes that, despite producing an occasional scene of brutal realism, fails to be that good. This two-hour and forty-minute story of one man's greedy ambition and his unwavering quest for wealth at whatever cost, reminded me of a Charles Dickens story where all the characters are caricaturesand that is not a good thing.
Daniel Plainview is an oilman who is seeking to make a fortune by finding a piece of real estate with a profitable oil well. He has no family except for a baby boy he adopts and quickly turns into his young prodigy. He is approached by a boy, Paul (played by Paul Dano), who tells him of a ranch where there is such an abundance of oil it is seeping out of the ground. This is all Daniel needs to hear before setting off to find it. When he arrives he quickly goes about buying up the ranch as well as all the surrounding land and then with a crew starts drilling. He does run into some confrontation with Eli (also played by Paul Dano) the brother of Paul. Eli realizes the oil is worth something and wants a share of the profit for his church which he is minister of. Daniel agrees to this, but once he strikes oil and starts raking in money, he completely ignores his deal with Eli as his true colors are shown and he slowly turns completely bitter to everyone around him.
This is one of those films that seems to easily garner many award nominations and termed "masterpiece!", but when you go see it you are left wondering if you saw the same film. There were simply too many flaws in this film to be even close to a masterpiece.
To start, as I said before there are moments of true brilliance and some scenes were so engrossing that you would hang on every motion and line of the characters only to be shut back out the moment the scene was over or the acting would become so ferocious that serious parts were almost humorous. PTA, the director, seems to have this style of pushing his actors almost into the territory of over-acting (as was the case of Tome Cruise and Julian Moore in Magnolia).
The production was nothing new or magnificent. The cinematography was mediocre almost annoying at parts as it showed close-ups for extended periods of time. The score was a "nail-on-chalkboard" type with every note out of tune and absolutely no melody just repetitive clicking, banging, or stringing contrasted against the silence of the plains.
For the story to be almost three hours long it was too focused on the main character, so that the supporting characters (none of who are women) appear more like those extras who just have a few lines before they head to the next studio. Because of this fact I felt the reality was taken out of it as Daniel Plainview seemed to exist in his own world were there was no society and the people surrounding him were so vacant of any character that everyone did as he said. Also the lack of a female character (supporting or main) was a big mistake.
I give this film points for trying to bring a message, but there were too many messages and themes that got mixed together so at the end I was wondering if it was trying to show the affects of greed, money cannot buy happiness, capitalism vs. religion, etc. All of these themes are good but when they are not made clear enough.
Lastly I feel that since it is not an entertaining film, it is more a character study filled with different themes to critically analyze (which I LOVE) that the director should have chosen a different actor and story to illustrate those themes instead of oil drilling, Daniel-Day Lewis and nearly three hours of screen time (half of which has Daniel covered in oil beyond the point of recognition).