There Will Be Blood - screenwriter/director Paul Thomas Anderson's Oscar-winning film about the 1920s oil industry - is not a film to be taken lightly. The characters are insane, their motivations dark. This is not a movie with a light at the end of any hypothetical tunnel; instead, it is a brutal portrayal of the cutthroat oil industry - and, as the story showcases a battle between oil men and church figureheads, without any clear lines of good and evil - it lends a moderately interesting, very creepy take on organized religion as well.

Even the music in There Will Be Blood (composed by Jonny Greenwood, the guitarist from Radiohead) can be considered its own character throughout this jarring film. It is disconcerting music to say the least; harsh string arrangements and creepy segways make the movie feel more like a horror flick than a period drama. And more often than not, it left me feeling unsettled and on edge. Unfortunately, where some may find it groundbreaking, I found it to be simply distracting from the rest of the movie.

It won't be any surprise when I tell you that the main reason for watching this film is Daniel Day-Lewis, who most deservedly won the Oscar for his riveting portrayal of 1920s oil man Daniel Plainview. In There Will Be Blood, Day-Lewis proves for his fans yet again that he is truly one of the most accomplished actors of our time; he not only acts the role, he becomes it: from the mannerisms to the speech patterns, to the brazen - and often insane - persona. Plainview is a man who will stop at nothing - and protect no one - to further his oil rigging business, and Day-Lewis captures this raw intensity with a passion that is unmatched.

On the flip side, Paul Dano's excessive overacting and simultaneous whining (as Plainview's rival, the town's local preacher) is enough to make you want to pull your hair out. His character is annoying with a capital A . Other personalities throughout the film - such as Daniel's adored and then abused son H.W. (played by Dillon Freasier as a boy and then, later, by Russell Harvard as a man - who, in both cases, end up presenting the character as oddly flat), and Kevin O'Connor as Daniel's creepy would-be brother Henry, leave the viewer with few characters to empathize with.

Yet even beyond that, my biggest issue with this film is that - for an epic drama - it spent much more time on developing the acting talent than it did nurturing the plotline. Often, I found myself wanting to tune out (although Day-Lewis's performance did keep me riveted nonetheless) because I couldn't find my footing in terms of caring for the story. All in all, I wondered: What's the point? Because this is primarily just a story of a self-destructive, careless, mean, and utterly insane man. There isn't any growth, there isn't any climactic rise and fall... nothing in this film left me even remotely caring: for its characters... or for its plot. And, quite frankly, I didn't care what happened to the characters - because their motivations - no matter how psychotic - were decidedly unclear. As a result, I felt physically and emotionally spent after watching There Will Be Blood - mostly because of Day-Lewis's unique brand of intensity, but also because I had to exert so much damn effort over the 158 running minutes of the film to enjoy it.

This is an interesting review to write, because There Will Be Blood is a must-see movie - but not, necessarily, one of Hollywood's great films. That is, all things considered, the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis, as well as the cinematographic vision portrayed by screenplay writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson, is well worth the strife you'll otherwise have to pay for sitting through this painfully long, brutally downcast, and often plodding film.

There Will Be Blood starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano
Paramount Vantage, Rated R. Available online at Amazon.com.

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