There will be Blu-ray, Eli, you boy! HD DVD was a bastard from a basket! Your high-def milkshake has now arrived. Drink it up! DRINK IT UP!
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) accidentally discovers oil while digging for silver on one of his claims. He soon begins to develop a small drilling company to get the oil from the ground. One of his men is killed and Plainview takes on the man’s orphaned son to be his own and names him H.W. (Dillon Freasier).
In 1911, he and H.W. are approached by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who tells him that for $500 he will tell him of a place where the oil bubbles to the surface. Daniel and H.W. inspect the land under the guise of being quail hunters and do discover that the oil does indeed do as Paul described.
Daniel offers Abell Sunday (David Willis) $5000 for the drilling rights, but Eli (Paul Dano), Paul’s twin brother, knows why Daniel and H.W. have come to the land and makes Daniel pay double so that Eli can set up his church. Plainview then begins to buy up the drilling rights to all the ranches around the area.
Eli sets up his “Church of the Third Revelation” and fashions himself a faith healer. Eli asks Plainview to allow him to bless the opening of the first well, Plainview agrees to, but at the opening ignores Eli and gives the honor to Eli’s little sister.
Eventually the well hits a large reservoir of oil but the expulsion of gas ignites and in the explosion following H.W. loses his hearing. When Eli later comes to the site to request the other $5000 owed him, Plainview attacks him and asks why he couldn’t heal H.W.’s hearing loss.
Plainview is approached by his half-brother Henry (Kevin J. O’Connor) who tells him that their father has died. H.W. discovers something about Henry and tries to burn him in his bed, which gets H.W. sent away to a home for deaf children. Plainview continues to pull more and more oil out of the ground, but the future will find him both a rich man and a madman.
I originally used the quote from the bible to sum up There Will Be Blood and it bears repeating. Open your books brethren and turn to Mark 8, verse 36. Read along. “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” We’ll now pass the offering plate so that I can get a brand new Cadillac. But I digress.
There Will Be Blood has an epic feel to it and Daniel Day-Lewis’ burning performance only cements the deal. He was rewarded for it with Oscar gold after all (but did he lose his soul? Well, does anyone in Hollywood have one?).
I usually don’t say much about packaging, but I’ll have to say that I really like the picture they’ve used on the cover of the Blu-ray. An oil-covered Day Lewis, looking gaunt, with a fiery oil derrick in the background. Surely, a vision of hell. Sadly, it’s a hell of Daniel Plainview’s making as he slowly descends into the fiery pit in his pursuit of money and instead finds madness.
The film feels so very authentic as the men toil and dig for black gold and those touches stand out even more in high-definition. It’s been a long wait as There Will Be Blood was first announced for HD DVD and then taken away as the high-definition war came to a close. The film is well worth the wait and Blu-ray only accentuates the experience.
There are also two deleted scenes. The first is the 2 minute “Fishing” as the men have to toil for three weeks to retrieve some equipment from the bottom of the well shaft. The next is the 3 minute “Haircut/Interrupted Hymn” which shows H.W. giving Daniel a haircut and another cut of Daniel with H.W. on the train before he sends him away. “Dailies Gone Wild” runs 2 minutes and shows Day-Lewis cracking up at the end of the scene in the restaurant.
The final extra is the 1920 film “The Story of Petroleum” (25 minutes) that has had a new score recorded for it. The case also contains a double sided paper with stills from the movie that have been colorized by artist Shin Katan. The extras are interesting, but a bit thin and I would’ve liked more about the making of the film.
There Will Be Blood features a grand performance from Daniel Day-Lewis and well worth the effort to see. Blu-ray, though belated, only adds to the detail of the film. I would’ve liked to have seen more special features, but someone must’ve drunk that milkshake.
There Will Be Blood [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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