There Will Be Blood

Thu, 05/29/2008 - 3:35pm by Jessenma

Daniel Plainview is a silver miner turned oilman. He, along with his son and business partner, H.W., scour the west in search of valuable petroleum fields. One dark and stormy night a strange young man shows up at Plainview’s prospecting office and sells him a tip on a massive oil field located beneath a struggling family ranch in the dusty, one horse town of Little Boston, California. The tip turns out to be the motherload Plainview has spent years searching for and he quickly sets up business. As the oil wells spring up, so do the conflicts between Plainview and those bent on exploitation. Chief among those after the oilman's wealth and power is the town's sanctimonious preacher, Eli Sunday, who will stop at nothing to fulfill his own ambitions. As the tension mounts, Plainview's greed and ruthlessness spiral into madness until only he and his fortune are left.
Truly one of Paul Thomas Anderson's best works (although be warned, the movie starts out slow). Daniel Day Lewis, who prepared for this role by living in a tent on an abandoned oil field, is remarkable as Daniel Plainview. Dark, funny, touching and terrifying, There Will Be Blood delivers a solid strike.