Emperor needs new clothes

Rating: 2/10 (12 January 2008)

Here's the good news: Daniel Day-Lewis is the best actor working in film today.
OK, not to be too over the top -- if he isn't the greatest, he's in the top 3.
It's impossible not to be blown away by his performance. It's a masterpiece of power, yet remarkably subtle. A cousin to the monster he played in GANGS OF NEW YORK -- but never a copy or a caricature.
I wanted to love the picture as much as I loved the performance.
But PTA's adaptation of Sinclair's OIL is a messy and all over the place as the black gold shooting up from the land.
Sinclair's favorite themes -- greed, religious hypocrisy, desire for redemption -- are here in full force. And, at times, the film hypnotizes you with it's depiction of a brutal early 20th century American wilderness.
But at other times it is so impressed with itself that its story is overshadowed by its bombast.
Still DDL might get the Oscar he deserved for GANGS OF NEW YORK. Well deserved.