Cheap Cds - There Will Be Blood (2 disc Special Edition) [2007]

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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Accomplished film making with hollow core
Comment: To quote from Amazon's own review: `that we don't entirely understand Plainview at the film's
conclusion is not a shortcoming, but rather a tribute to the depths of this most vile creature and
this most brilliant film.'

Well I beg to differ: but it IS a shortcoming. Or it felt
like one to me.

Just like No Country for Old Men, which I watched the subsequent night
in a double bill of shattered-American-Dream masochism, it's an accomplished piece of film making
containing a virtuoso performance or two. But likewise, it has been praised beyond its due and fails
for not dissimilar reasons.

Day Lewis' character seems to have come from nowhere and
journey from there to a richer, lonelier nowhere. Other than a brief insight into his motivation
midway - where he illuminates us that he hates mankind - there is no explanation for his actions and
his ruthless drive for money. He betrays everyone - townsfolk, son, brother. And his nemesis -
preacher Eli - is just as scarily off the sanity Richter Scale, so there is no moral measure against
which to guage him.

Some - like Amazon's own reviewer - will argue this doesn't matter.
Except that makes it hard to care what happens to anyone, so by the time we reach the final scene it
seems grotesque but dissatisfying. Plainview's son, his fellow oil men, the village inhabitants are
too thinly outlined - characters are brought in, like the stubborn farmer who will not sell his
land, then disappear - and was I the only one confused by the two lookalike-y brothers at the start?
The result is not just rambling but disengaging, as man's every raison d'être - capitalism, faith,
familial love - is set up and knocked down; and nothing remains, or emerges in its stead. I've heard
this film described as a parable for our times. But where, exactly, is the moral or spiritual
insight to justify such a term when the core is hollow?

At risk of being yet more
incendiary (no pun intended), whilst there can be no doubt the film is a great vehicle for Day
Lewis, I'd contend that he has been better. More than once I felt he was Acting with a capital `A'.
Am I alone in having found him more subversive, moving, and above all subtle in his earlier films
such as My Beautiful Launderette, My Left Foot and The Unbearable Lightness of Being? Whereas here,
as with Gangs of New York, he seems to over egg it, creating a sense he is playing in a different
movie to everyone else.

Finally, talking of over egging...that score. It interrupted
constantly, like a radio in the same room tuned to a different station. At times it felt better
suited to a thriller, at times to an epic romance. Never did it seem to sit with the film it had -
presumably - been written for. And that, for me, sealed it. 3 stars. No more, no less.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Bloody Good
Comment: Firstly, I disagree with any reviewer who deems this film "boring". Very true that it is of slow
velocity in comparison to the majority of contemporary blockbusters, but is this necessarily a bad
trait? On the contrary I found it refreshingly intelligent, and in an audacious attempt, reverts to
good old traditional film making, of which minimal script and superb acting (which I might add, the
screen presence exuded by Day-Lewis is second to none, and is comparable to Javier Bardem's chilling
performance as Anton Chigurh in 'No Country For Old Men') carry the film. This, combined with
alluring cinematography, tangible score, and Anderson's directorial prowess, yields one fine movie
experience.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The worst film I have maybe ever seen
Comment: Oh my god. I persevered. I made it to the end. For Nothing. I tried to be introspective, I tried to
absorb the finer points, I tried to concentrate, I tried to let it flow easily over me. In two hours
plus a lot of minutes I tried a lot of things, none of which worked. The guy on the piano and
whoever wrote the score, I'd have taken them out in a bowling alley!! With more passion than Daniel
day Lewis managed to that annoying Eli character. I literally had a headache after the endless bass
piano notes....There were ten minute periods when literally NOTHING happened. There was a richard
gere, sharon stone film eons ago about a car crash that was the worst film I had ever seen.....now
this has replaced that in the pantheon of bad films I have sat through...I can't believe some people
on here rated it!!!

Customer Rating:

Summary: requiem7
Comment: A slow burner. Beautifully shot. Powerful acting all round by the main characters. I enjoyed this
film even though it is quite long. But there is plenty of action as well as the slow parts. Not
impressed by the cardboard box that the dvds come in though.

Customer Rating:

Summary: not the best
Comment: After watching the film for a hour i thought ,now it will get going but it never did ! acting is
good ,film just fails to deliver.Save your cash

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