There Will Be Blood (2007)

THERE WILL BE BLOOD  (2007)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Paul Thomas Anderson
    Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano,
    Ciarán Hinds, Kevin J. O'Connor
30 years in the life of a uniquely American monster: a free-market sociopath named Daniel Plainview, the protagonist of Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel "Oil!" The first time you see Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), he's a hardscrabble miner breaking his back at the bottom of a pit, breaking up shale with a pick and hoping to strike it rich. The year is 1898. Plainview does strike it rich, acquiring more wealth than most mortals would know what to do with. It's not enough. Both the character and Day-Lewis's drawling vocal delivery have drawn comparisons to Noah Cross, the monster John Huston played in "Chinatown". The two would be rough contemporaries, and they share a spiritual kinship (and a capacity for ruthlessness) as rugged individuals in an age of unbridled greed. Unlike Cross, Plainview has no apparent interest in sex or women, but there's a moment, when he offers his protection to a very young girl, when you can't help thinking about old Noah. It makes your skin crawl. Where Cross practically oozed false charm, Plainview doesn't even make a pretense of it, barely concealing his contempt for the suckers he's buying out, or his raging hatred for anybody who stands in his way. It's a ferocious performance by Day-Lewis, one that recalls his work as Bill the Butcher in "Gangs of New York": a cold-blooded force of nature with no apparent values beyond taking what he wants any way he can get it. In the end, there's a sense that Plainview has lost something, but it's hard to tell what. He's cut himself off from the rest of humanity, but that's hardly tragic. He hates people anyway. Maybe it's the old biblical line about gaining the world at the cost of your soul. A soul seems to be something Daniel Plainview was born without.