by John Hoty

Created on: April 20, 2008   Last Updated: September 22, 2008

Almost a week after first seeing Paul Thomas Anderson's epic THERE WILL BE BLOOD, I find myself still reeling in its wake. To deem this film "great" would be a serious understatement that I could not live with, nor would it justify my respect for it. Here is a movie - a FILM really - that wastes none of its 158-minute running time to brilliantly and freshly explore themes of greed, loyalty, family, ambition and, most powerfully, religion. Upon completing my first viewing of THERE WILL BE BLOOD I was astounded by Anderson's consummate attention to detail and period dialogue, as well as his own daring to jump so far out of his trademark niche to deliver us a story of harrowing ambition through the eyes of a man so relentless in his quest that even God couldn't stop him.

Thus far, so much of THERE WILL BE BLOOD has been compared to CITIZEN KANE - not because TWBB is the greatest movie ever made, but because it, too, tells the monumental story of a self-made man who will stop at nothing to achieve greatness. Anderson's film compares to Welles' timeless classic on a number of levels, but deserves its own pedestal altogether. Here is a contemporary filmmaker so bold and intelligent that the release of each one of his films is met with such high expectations and lauded by his peers with such envy that he has inherited Welles' legacy. Often scribed as an ingenious blend of Altman, Scorsese and Demme, Paul Thomas Anderson has found a way to employ so much of what distinguished those idols into his own signature of ensemble dramas with a dash of biting hilarity... this time with THERE WILL BE BLOOD, however, Anderson left all critical and audience expectations far behind in order to bring us this truly original epic that will undoubtedly gain its position over the coming years as one of the Greatest Films of All Time.

Anderson tells us the story of Daniel Plainview (portrayed here in a haunting Oscar-winning turn by Daniel Day-Lewis), a self-made man conquering all he sets out to conquer with no one's help but his own. (Not to say Plainview doesn't eventually build himself a crew to handle the majority of the labor, but the wheels only turn because Plainview is turning them.) So determined to win at the game of life that Plainview speaks to anyone and everyone in harsh certainties - "If I tell you I'm an oil man, then you will agree that I am an oil man" - and declares his plans for the future with the sharp, unflinching delivery of an expert politician. Little is known

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