Rubbish! Rubbish Rubbish Rubbish Rubbish Rubbish I have run out of rubbish

Rating: 1/10 (30 August 2008)

Okay, those easily offended overt your eye sockets. In contrary to popular opinion I thought this film was rubbish. In fact I could not be bothered to watch it to the end because there was some important paint I had to watch dry. Plot holes galore, melodramatic music, over stylised. Lets just start with the Daniel Day Lewis character, Daniel Plainview. In every film there is a protagonist that we go on a journey with (if you don't agree with this then stop reading) the protagonist must have have some redeeming quality and we the audience go with him or her. The protagonist does not have to be a hero, see (Kevin Bacon in "The Woodsman for very grim example or Eric Bana in "Chopper" for a charismatic anti hero)" We go with Daniel Plainview on a nihilistic capitalist spree driven by greed. That's fair enough. I like unpopular people, I am one. However, the film relentlessly shows us how awful Daniel Plainass is. It shows no human, balanced redeeming qualities and therefore I (we) don't care what happens to him. The sub plot about him meeting his "brother" was excuse the pun "overkill" we understood way back that Plainview would go to any lengths why show us again?????
There was such a promising start, the "Ely" character who appears so integral to Plainview's "redemption" is side stepped for 20 minutes of the film then turns up ten years later looking exactly the same age - Couldn't Make Up have given him some kind of beard?
There is a comment in the church that Plainview has been "whoring or lusting" This is one damn thing we don't see him do? Really bad.
THE MUSIC!
Now I liked the music, as music, the opening chords were foreboding and malevolent, two things I like. However, given its emotional context during the burning of the first Oil Well/Mine it was WAY WAY over the top and necessary. It was Horror in a drama and the sort of directorial decision that detracted from the emotional weight of the story. The percussive music later on also appeared totally out of place given its emotional and dramatic context. Don't get me wrong, it sounded great, but it just did n't reflect the mood of the plains.
Dylan Buckle