Four stars
At the outset of "There Will Be Blood," director Paul Thomas Anderson presents viewers with two indomitable images that set the tone for the film.
The first is of the rugged, unforgiving southwestern landscape, which, at the end of the 19th century, tempted men with its hills lined with precious metals and badlands covering subterranean rivers of oil.
The second image is of a grizzled and solitary prospector who is resolutely mining this land in his drive to find wealth. An accident leaves the man stunned, at the bottom of a mineshaft with a shattered leg, yet his ambition for wealth is so strong that he crawls out of the mine and to the nearest assayer's office to lay claim to the gold he has found.
Consequently, Anderson conveys the message that this man, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), is no one to be trifled with.
His obsessive greed for money and power will not be stopped by the environment, men or even God.
Plainview's initial successes as a gold and silver miner soon translate into even greater successes as a driller of oil wells. But with this, Plainview must interact with other human beings, either to serve as laborers for his riggings or to exploit unknowing landowners whose properties rest atop abundant reservoirs of oil.
Plainview sees all men as competitors to his own ambitions and therefore is unthinkingly ruthless in his dealings with them. The only hope that there may be any sense of humanity in his heart comes in Plainview's relationship with H.W. (Dillion Freasier), a boy he adopts when the child's father is killed in a rigging accident.
One evening, a young man by the name of Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) comes calling on Plainview with a unique offer.
For a price, Sunday will cede Plainview the whereabouts of his parent's property, a land area that literally has oil seeping out of the ground.
Plainview plays along. But when he discovers Sunday is telling the truth, he wastes no time in taking advantage of Sunday's family, paying them little of what the land is actually worth. Sunday's brother, Eli (Dano, again), a budding preacher, knows otherwise and demands full compensation.
Thus begins a war between Man and God in which all souls are revealed to be as black as the oil that colors the land. And redemption isn't as much of an option as is damnation.
"There Will Be Blood" is a great picture for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the towering performance of Day-Lewis. The actor commits himself as much to his character as Plainview does to his pursuit of black gold.
In his mannerisms and voice, Day-Lewis evokes memories of John Huston. In fact, Day-Lewis' Plainview could easily be the father of Huston's corrupt Noah Cross from Roman Polanski and Robert Towne's "Chinatown."
Another reason for the film's greatness is due to the fantastic production design by Jack Fisk. The look and feel of this film rings so true it seems more like a documentary than an entertainment.
And finally, "There Will Be Blood" represents Anderson's best work as a filmmaker. Anderson looked to socialist Upton Sinclair's 1929 novel "Oil!" for his source material and built upon a segment of that story in ways that are nothing short of inspired.
The film is so densely layered in plot, character, Biblical reflections and cinematic techniques, subsequent viewings will serve to reveal layers not initially seen. This is not to say, however, that the film isn't always accessible.
At two hours and 40 minutes, the film is lengthy and punctuated with scenes that are without spoken dialogue, seem endlessly long or are blithely obtuse. This is because "There Will Be Blood" is a film that begs to be studied as much as it is savored.