The universal critical acclaim that greeted ‘There Will Be Blood‘ led me to expect a classic to match and even surpass ‘Citizen Kane‘. The themes of the two movies are not so dissimilar with the tale of an anti-hero driven by a single minded greed and ambition to madness and isolation.
Daniel Day Lewis is quite rivetting in the lead role of the ‘plain speaking oil man’ but ultimately having to carry the movie for over two hours proves that sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
What really lets the film down is the abrupt and unnecessarily crude finale which looks very much as if director Paul Thomas Anderson was so intent on ending up with a dramatic closing scene that he is prepared to sacrifice the patient character study that precedes it.
It’s a fine movie but not the masterpiece its made out to be.
