There Will Be Blood

There are plenty of things that I love about sports. One of the great things is that there are plenty of sports analogies to use when describing something. I usually only use them to help emphasis a point or get under someone’s skin.

When discussing There Will Be Blood with my co-worker, I was torn. Before I had a chance to see it I had everyone telling me how great the movie was. After watching it I wasn’t sure if it was a really good movie or just an okay movie with great acting. Often times, like sports, the line is blurred. The movie reminded me of one of the Chicago Bulls teams from the 90’s. Were they a really good team or just an okay team with a few great players. They really only needed a few people to play great and they had chance to win every night. With a few good players, There Will Be Blood has a chance to win big on Oscar night.

The film begins almost like a silent film. There is very little said in the first 15-20 minutes. The films first real dialogue is Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis who would be Michael Jordan) sort of giving the plot of the movie. He introduces himself as an “oil man” and H.W. Plainview (Dillon Freasier who would be John Paxson or Steve Kerr) as his son and business partner. He had to be about 8-10 years old which made that funny to me for some reason. He's the most serious 8 years old I've ever scene.

One night Plainview is paid a visit by a young man who tells him of a town that has oil coming out of the ground. He says that companies are buying up land all around it, but that town is where the oil is. Daniel and son H.W set off to this town to see if it is true or not. The bulk of the film takes place in a small town as Plainview and his colleagues extract oil, and with their shrewd business practices, try to scam the townspeople out of their money. Not that exciting of a plot right? That’s like not having a great team and then some how you land MJ and Pippen.

Daniel-Day Lewis delivers and MJ like performance in the film. He is very believable as Daniel Plainview. I left the film thinking that he was Plainview, a rude oil man who even go as far to say that he didn’t like people and found most of them to be ignorant. The character was so driven that he sacrificed his family, friends, often didn’t like or know the people he worked with. He had a focus kind of like Michael Jordan in some ways.

The other amazing performances comes from Paul Dano (who would be Scottie Pippen) who plays a young evangelical preacher, Eli Sunday. Eli is focused on getting some of the oil money for his family and his church. Dano is one of the great surprises of the movie. I think his performance may go overlooked because of the magnificent job that Daniel Day Lewis does in the film. We know Lewis is great because we’ve seen him in Gangs Of New York, and Last Of The Mohicans. I can’t recall seeing Dano in anything. I was shocked when I looked at the Academy Award nominations this week, and did not see his name on there for Best Supporting Actor. Much like Jordan and Pippen, the two of them together were phenomenal, and by far the best scenes in the movie.

So back to my analogy. The plot is so-so and the rest of the supporting cast is okay, but don’t really do anything to help carry the film. Much like those Bulls teams, two to three major players carry the film (The last 30-45 minutes are incredible). The very last scene is like a 2-on-1 fast break with Lewis and Dano. I’m not quite sure where the line is blurred. Is it really that good of a story? We all know that the actors can make or break a film. We know this is true for most films, but I think it stands to be even more true for There Will Be Blood. I’m not sure if you replace those actors what kind of film you have left. If you replace MJ and Scottie, what sort of team would you have left?

My suggestion: Great performances in this movie. I don’t care if it’s the movie that’s great or the acting. This is one of those must-see-movies of the year and the year just started. It may at some point be overhyped and shoved down our throats as the Academy Awards approach. Try not to let that discourage you. People got tired of hearing about how good the Bulls were, but you have to admit they were a good team.