Oil flows through his veins, and his heart is as black as crude...

Daniel Day-Lewis has a reputation for being one of the most intense method actors in the business, often completely turning himself into his character on and off the set for months until filming is complete.  The end result is typically a chameleon-like performance that's completely unique from his previous work. With most actors, you find yourself seeing the same mannerisms and dramatic crutches being used over and over throughout any of their roles (Tom Cruise comes to mind), but not so with Day-Lewis. You won't find any remnants of Christy Brown (My Left Foot) mixed in with Hawkeye (The Last of the Mohicans). Danny Flynn (The Boxer) is nothing like the Bill the Butcher (Gangs of New York).  It's amazing he's only got one Oscar to his name, but I think his performance in There Will Be Blood has a good shot of earning him a second one. 

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and loosely based on a novel by Upton Sinclair, There Will Be Blood follows the rise of Daniel Plainview, who takes a humble sum of money earned from mining gold and silver, and turns it into a fortune during the hey-day of U.S. oil prospecting in the early twentieth century.  A fortuitous (or perhaps ominous) lead moves Plainview further west to take advantage of the sea of oil underneath yet untapped parcels of land in California.  The poor inhabitants of the area, who can't even make bread because the arid conditions prevent them from raising viable crops, are more than happy to sell their properties to Plainview.  The only resistance comes from Eli Sunday, an evangelist looking to get more money out of Plainview for his church.  And that's the basics of the plot.  

I'm not sure what most of you think of P.T. Anderson's previous works, but I happen to be a fan.  He's never formulaic, and always original.  You might even catch a little of his previous films in this movie.  A exuberant sermon by Sunday almost seems a mirror image of Tom Cruise's "respect the cock" diatribe in Magnolia.  Kind of humorous to think how these two scenes were so different, yet so similar.

There Will Be Blood, isn't so much driven by the story, though.  It's more about character development, as we watch how Daniel Plainview struggles with his greed.  An orphan child named H.W., whom Plainview adopts early on in the film, seems to be the force trying to pull him to a more righteous way of thought.  Ironically, Eli Sunday pulls him in the opposite direction, almost goading him to give in to his base instincts.  The preacher as the devil isn't such a new concept, but the subtle way that this develops is genius.  

The orchestral arrangements are chilling, reminiscent of something you'd find in a horror movie rather than a drama about oil.  Somehow, though, in the context of the film, it works.  Daniel Plainview seems to be slowly devolving and overwhelmed by his own personal demons until the very end when he succumbs to the ultimate act of greed.  It's a horrific journey, and makes sense that the musical accompaniment would convey this.

Finally, I have to end by saying Daniel Day-Lewis truly gives the performance of the year.  It's worth catching this movie purely for the enjoyment of watching a true master at work.  He's a pretty choosy actor that seems to make a movie about as often as Haley's Comet comes around, so you should always check him out when you can.  If he doesn't get the Oscar for Best Actor this year, you'll have been a witness to one of the greatest robberies in recent history.