{mosimage}Greed, religious fanatics, money, oil… an explosive mix for this adaption of the novel by Upton Sinclair.
There will be blood gives us the chance to see once more to Daniel Day Lewis in a main character role. Not easy to forget his past amazing characters in films like Gangs of New York, In the Name of the Father of The Last of The Mohicans. Being one of the best and most solid actors of the last decades, it seemed that the role of the greedy oil tycoon Daniel Plainview will suit him like a glove. And nobody can´t deny his skills as an actor. But this time the combination does not work. Director Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to create that kind of character “bigger than life” and he ended up with a boring film full of too much histrionic performances.
The first twenty minutes are really promising, when we see the developments of Plainview from a simple silver searcher to an successful oilman, but putting all the efforts in trying to create a role big enough for Day Lewis to get the academic award, Anderson forgot how to put the rest of the details together in the film. Rhythm is too slow, the relation with the secondary characters could have been much more improved and the final more than shocking, looks ridiculous.
I had to stop a couple of times the DVD to make a break and smoke a cigarette not to fall asleep. The film is receiving very positive reviews all over the world, so maybe it is just my personal distorted perception, but I can just say “There will be blood…and there will be boredom”.
Rating 2/5.