There Will Be Blood Review

By Mitchell Dean

Rated: R
Running Time: 158 minutes
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson (Screenplay), Upton Sinclair (Novel)
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciaran Hinds
Opens: January 11th, 2008

MITCH SLAPS: 3 out of 3 (Based on how bad a film is; 0 Mitch Slaps is great; 3 Mitch Slaps is horrible)

Images and music; that’s how the film begins and after what seems like an eternity of not knowing who, what, why, when or where, we finally here some dialog…NO! We guess that the setting is somewhere in the West. We guess that these miners are adventurers, possibly even pioneers and at first we might think they are searching for gold. The reality is that they ARE searching for gold; black gold, texas tease, the type of rich stuffs that made Jed a millionaire…OIL!

This incredibly sad film is made worse due to the self aggrandizing direction of Paul Thomas Anderson, who is anything but consistent. We saw the mediocre Magnolia, than the amazing Boogey Nights, followed by the not so terrible Punch Drunk Love. The film has darkness at its core which could have potentially created some amazing characterization for Anderson’s stars. The most notable actor is Daniel Day-Lewis, who obviously throws his entire spirit into the film, only to be let down by his director. Anderson seemingly directs Lewis to play his character, Daniel Plainview, as an everyman American hero dealing with extraordinary situations in extraordinary ways. In retrospect, Plainview comes across as an evil, vile, self destructive man with one goal in mind, making money at anyone’s expense.

There will be blood is based upon the novel by the same name, written by Upton Sinclair. It follows Daniel Plainview as he grows from an oil prospector to a baron, while at the same time his spirits grows as dark as the oil he seeks. He forsakes the young son, whom he adopts after his father is killed early in the film and he keeps all relations at arms length, only allowing the oil he loves so much to be his mistress.

Anderson attempts to show the very real and pressing dangers inherent with being an oil prospector in the 1800’s, but he misses the mark and instead presents us with a film which might have been just as boring as watching the drill go up and down, day after day, month after month, year after year. There might have been something entertaining in there somewhere, but the boredom wins out with a running time of 2 hours and 38 minutes, feeling much more like 4 hours.

Anderson usually goes for the art over entertainment, but There Will Be Blood doesn’t even come close to being as brilliant as Anderson thinks he is as a director. The film grates the nerves; it looks as if a film student, other than a seasoned director put it together and the writing is more like that of a 1st time screenwriter.

It is slowly becoming clear that Anderson is possibly just another over rated director that got lucky with one great script in Boogie Nights. Every step he has taken since seems more like a miss-step than a move forward and There Will Be Blood will leave you wondering if you spent your hard earned money on a film made by a director getting rich off of making bad movies. Is that the direction Hollywood is going? Novel adaptations that are as dry as day old toast, helmed by directors that are more talented in their own minds than the films they create? Let’s hope not.

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