Search - There Will Be Blood on DVD

Rebecca C. (sweetooth) from COLCHESTER, IL
Reviewed on 8/30/2010...

This site gives this movie 3 stars, but I give it 5. It's sometimes difficult to watch-the descent of the main character into aloholism and insanity never lets up. Although it's set at the turn of the last century it has some good insight into the soul-dead greed of the Bush era. And Daniel Day-Lewis delivers one of the greatest acting performances I've ever seen. Not an easy movie, but worth the time.

5 of 5 member(s) found this review helpful.

Angela F. from CHARLOTTESVLE, VA
Reviewed on 12/6/2009...

This is Day-Lewis chewing up scenery. If only he'd had a director. A self-indulgent aimless waste of your time. Too bad, really.

2 of 12 member(s) found this review helpful.

Cara F. (dichten) from PRT WASHINGTN, WI
Reviewed on 11/1/2009...

Within the first fourteen and a half minutes alone one should be able to decide if they will care for this film, as those first fourteen and a half minutes are bereft of dialogue. Save for a few grunts and wails, not a single word is spoken. Why? Because this is a thinking man's movie. One must watch the beginning of this film and pick up on the not so subtle brush strokes of Theme.

Greed. The lust for money, money as power, power corrupting absolutely. From the first, foreboding screech of the violins which thrust us into "There Will Be Blood" we know to watch for the coming darkness -- and, boy, does that darkness creep.

Daniel Day-Lewis brings a masterful performance to this film. The kind of performance which seeps slowly but powerfully, growing ever stronger until that final, climactic moment. This man wields his monumental ability with a skewed grace and killing beauty. He is an actor whose breed is shockingly rare, an endangered species.

Paul Dano is remarkable as Eli Sunday, a preacher whose morals are corrupt at best, appearing black and slick as the oil Daniel is drilling. Dano does not play this role, but consumes it. He becomes Eli, to such a point where it is shocking to me that he was not even nominated for an Oscar. As the film progresses, the insanity and crookedness in Eli, and Daniel, abound and one has to ask: who is good and who is evil?

Without writing an entire synopsis of the film (and giving the entire thing away), I'll conclude with this:

This movie is a beast -- not in length, but in its unrelenting power. It is not for the lighthearted or for anyone who neither appreciates nor understands allegory. This is not a movie plopped into the DVD player to kill time, or to birth background noise for a poker game. This is not something to watch, either, but to experience.

And then when it ends, when it has left you low and bruised and in a marvelous state of awe -- play it again. That's what I did at least, and if you only need to hear one thing let it be that I loved this movie so much that I watched it twice in rapid succession.

10 of 10 member(s) found this review helpful.

Bob N. from CORINNE, UT
Reviewed on 10/24/2009...

This movie was a total waste of time I would not recommend it to anyone, I just lost 2 hrs that i will not get back hoping that it would get better but it never did

2 of 13 member(s) found this review helpful.

There will be hell to pay...

Condor08 | Brawley, CA, USA | 07/08/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is unbelievable! It's a main character that you must-see. Me and my husband could not get over how insane this man was. Ruthless, if you dare get in his way. Great story."

Solid

Cosmoetica | New York, USA | 09/01/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Overall, There Will Be Blood is a film with a good opening, a few good potential moments and scenes (as with the faux brother), but it ends in near disaster. Its ending would rank as one of the worst in history (think Akira Kurosawa's Rashomom) if only the rest of the film had been stronger. Also, in no way, shape, nor form is the film an `epic.' Other than the word `surreal' the term epic may be the most overused and misused word in the arts. An epic is a tale that covers a great deal of history, time, and place. It also delves deeply into the characters and plot. There Will Be Blood is a series of cursory sketches that are meager and often poorly connected. I spoke of the hit and miss cinematography, but the musical scoring to this film is even worse. And, even if one were to put aside the technical lack, and the script problems, there's the acting. It's simply not good. The two main characters, Lewis and Dano have no chemistry, in the sense that their hatred of each other never seems genuine. And, while Dano is a cipher emotionally, Lewis chews scenery even more than he did as Bill The Butcher In Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York. Granted, while not a great film, that film was better written than this one, but there is a certain cartoonishness in Lewis's portrayal that neuters all attempt at real drama. One cares not a damn for any of the mannekin-like characters- save perhaps for the faux brother, whose very fakeness was designed merely to show of Lewis's character's rage and psychopathy, but did nothing of the sort. It only made the faux brother's character seem slighter by his casual dismissal from Daniel's life. Also, the tale is both too linear and too sparse in development to have any real poesy. It relies not on characterization but grotesques- they aren't even caricatures. And, after the first fifteen minutes, I kept wondering what a real visionary director like Theo Angelopoulos or Michelangelo Antonioni would have done with this film's premise- even its footage, for quality editing could have severely tightened the film up, and made it less dependent upon overwrought theatrics. In essence, one can tell this was a Hollywood film, even from the first minutes of silence.

There Will Be Blood attempts to be epic, great, and tie in with the current political zeitgeist by showing viewers the beginnings of what caused global warming. Instead, it is a meandering tale that relies on soap operatic tricks (such as Bandy's blackmailing Daniel into Eli's church- why?) that don't even have a payoff, however cheap; as well as being dull and poor in almost every filmic aspect (not unlike its twinned, wildly overpraised critical cousin, the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men). That this film got so raved over as a great piece of cinema shows how little critics and filmgoers today understand real art and/or care about it. Which scenario is worse is open for debate. This film's quality isn't."