Rated: R
Running Time: 158 Minutes
Year: 2007
Boobs: Zero
One Sentence: What does Daniel Day-Lewis look like?
I assume everyone has head about this movie. Daniel Day-Lewis gives the preformance of a life time, best movie of the year, bla bla bla. The story of an oil man starting in Texas, and the life of him and his son. This movie seems like an unstoppable force on the train to the Academy Awards. Everyone seems so buzzed about it. Especially Daniel's performance. But is it worth all the hype? I am not so sure about that.
Daniel Day-Lewis does destroy all conventions of acting and truly in this movie is the man he is playing. I don't feel like DDL even exists anymore as far as this film goes, it is a documentary filmed through time, about the oil man Daniel Plainview. He commands the screen, convinces everyone that he is a shrewed smart oil man coming up and his rise to power. There is no doubt in my mind that he deserves every acting award he is offered this year. He was truly amazing. He makes me feel like I have no idea what he looks like as a real person. He changes himself so much that the person Daniel Day-Lewis is, almost never existed.
However a single actor does not a movie make, and this movie outside of the acting show, is a fine creation of film, but lacks in a rounded out quality that we come to expect from the best movie of the year. It is not nearly as satisfying as No Country For Old Men, and at the end of Blood we are left wondering if that was it, and why we were just subjected to this two and a half hour story. What was the point. I didn't feel like there was anything there more than a showcase for his acting. The story was fine, but it didn't have that shattering feeling in your heart and mind when the credits rolled. So I am going to say the commitment to the time this movie takes to get through is a lot and only those that are the true movie hard cores should spend their time on it. Those that do want to see it can rent it. The rest of you, will not miss anything skipping it completly.
