Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a silver miner who one day, through a simple twist of fate, injures himself but also strikes oil. As he drills for his oil and expands his business, involving several other men, a horrible accident occurs killing one man - a man with a young baby and no apparent wife. Plainview takes this child to be his own, not out of a sense of responsibility, but more so because he needs a cute face to accompany him as he plies his drilling wares. Fast-forward a couple of years and his business has grown even more. He is becoming a force to be reckoned with and larger entities such as Standard Oil are starting to take real notice. One day, a young man comes to see him with word of acreage where the oil bubbles out of the ground. Wanting to sell this information for $500, young Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) convinces Daniel and his business partner of the information's authenticity, enough so that Daniel and his "son" H.W. make a trip to the town and, more specifically, to the homestead of the Sunday family under the guise of quail hunting. Sure enough, the oil is there and the land is ripe for the picking. Daniel has dinner with the Sunday family and states he would like to buy the land for quail hunting. Eli Sunday (also Paul Dano) is present at the table and is quick to call him out regarding the oil. A deal is struck that the Church of the Third Revelation, of which Eli is the exuberant pastor, would receive an extra $5000 over the price of the land if oil is found.
Plainview makes haste to purchase all of the land in the area, all except the land of Mr. Bandy, who refuses to sell. As preparations are being made to begin drilling, Eli asks Daniel to please invite him forward to bless the drilling procedure and although Daniel tacitly agrees, he instead invites Eli's sister up to the platform during the ceremony. This is just the first of major clashes between the two of them. When oil is eventually struck, the resounding boom that occurs causes H.W. to become deaf, and caring for a special needs child is not in Daniel Plainview's repertoire. To further complicate matters, Daniel's long-lost brother from another mother, Henry, comes to town and Daniel hires him to work with him. Soon thereafter, H.W. tries to kill Henry by burning down the building as everyone sleeps and H.W. is sent away. Additionally, Daniel discovers that Henry's story is just that - he is actually someone who knew Daniel's brother, who died of TB some months earlier, and in his rage, Daniel murders the man.
When Eli goes to Daniel seeking the promised money for the church, Daniel gives him a sound and recurring bitch-slapping and gravely humiliates him, not wanting to be bothered with this gnat of a boy whom Daniel sees as a charlatan anyway. While the well is producing a great deal of oil, Daniel's company is being held back by that one land-owner who refuses to allow him access to his land and thus, prevents him from laying the much-needed pipe to get his oil where it needs to go. Eventually, Eli convinces Daniel that he will get his lease agreement if he debases himself at a church service and admits he is a sinner who has sent his son away. Eli makes a grand spectacle of Daniel, just as Daniel did by beating Eli.
Fast-forward another 15 or so years and Daniel Plainview is a ridiculously wealthy man with a beautiful home complete with his own bowling alley. He is driven completely mad with power and becomes furious when his son, H.W., comes to him having just married Mary Sunday (Eli's sister) and tells him he is moving to Mexico to drill for oil himself. H.W. sees himself as branching out and wants his father's blessing, but Daniel sees H.W. as a competitor and has a rather ugly argument with the young man through an interpreter. It is plainly clear that Daniel has totally lost his marbles by this point as he disowns the boy and tells him of his true heritage. That he was nothing more than "a bastard in a basket". The two parts way forever.
Eli comes crawling to Daniel with an offer of business. Old Man Bandy (the land-owner holdout from so many years before) has died and Eli now offers the land to Daniel for a price. It is with great pleasure that Daniel tells Eli that he has long since drained the oil from under Mr. Bandy's land simply by drilling all around it. "I drank your milkshake!" as he so oddly puts it. He has his final victory here and Eli is completely crushed, body and soul.
While There Will Be Blood tells an interesting story and has some amazing cinematography, I did find myself getting bored during the film. It is a crazy long movie, some 158 minutes, and at times, it drags. The first part of the film, say the first 25 minutes or so, has absolutely no dialogue in it and yet you know exactly what is going on. This, in particular, is an amazing feat of storytelling. The music is spectacular and was done by Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. Its style falls somewhere between The X Files and Bugs Bunny, with heavy violins. If this sounds like an odd comparison, when you hear it, you will understand. It is both unnerving and rousing at the same time.
The acting is incredible, what with heavy-hitters like Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. Both are creepy and effective in their roles and you will never doubt that they are truly the characters they are portraying. For all of these things, I commend Mr. Anderson and There Will Be Blood. I see that he was trying to create an entire metaphor about the evils of big business and big religion and whether I agree or not, those metaphors were effective. However, there are certain parts of the film that simply lost me. For instance, is Paul Sunday a real person or merely the oily Eli Sunday trying to trick Daniel Plainview out of money? Later in the film, Daniel tells Eli how he paid $10,000 to Paul and that Paul is now drilling his own oil and making a fortune. Is this true or simply a fabrication of Daniel's? It is weird inconsistencies like this that lessened the experience for me. Not only that, but I didn't like the ending at all. I suppose throughout the movie, I was waiting for Eli to "pwn" Daniel and it just never happened. Quite the opposite, in fact. I just felt let down by the ending, plus it felt like a trip to crazy town.
As far as special features go, for a 2-Disc Collector's Edition, they felt fairly lean. There are a few deleted/extended scenes, a teaser and a trailer - typical stuff - plus a montage of clips from the movie plus pics and research used towards the making of the film. The one really cool feature was the addition of The Story of Petroleum, a silent film circa 1923 created by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Mines which chronicles the production of oil during this time period. It features the same music from the film, which adds another dimension, and while not the most riveting source material, it is educational and very interesting.
Is There Will Be Blood worth seeing? If just for the performances of Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano alone, yes. But it is a very long movie that sometimes wanders, so if you don't have an interest in the oil boom of the early 20th century, you may find yourself bored along the way.
