Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson 4 stars ::spoiler alert:: From the beginning, the screech of the score & the unnerving tang of the metal against rock set the tone. Not unlike Saving Private Ryan, the first 15 or so minutes of this movie are painful to watch. There's no dialogue, no flashy MTV-style editing. Just Daniel Day-Lewis in a shaft. A filthy, life-threatening shaft. This isn't the kind of movie you go to see if you're expecting a light-hearted mindless romp. No, no. This is the kind of movie you experience. You let it take you wherever it goes next & damn you for asking questions. Daniel Day-Lewis is magnificent in this film, essentially a character study. To that effect, Anderson stays with our main character when other lessor directors would cut to the actor providing the dialogue. We see his reactions. We focus solely upon him. Because it's his story we're following. It would be easy to play Daniel Plainview as a demon, less or more of a man, depending on your views on what evil lies within mens' souls. But Daniel Day-Lewis gives him the sort of humanity that, if absent, would have made this movie otherwise unsustainable. Plainview intrigues us. We just can't figure him out. Paul Dano (who was a treat in Little Miss Sunshine) plays Eli Sunday - the man who would be Plainview's antagonist if he wasn't already an antagonist himself. These are unlikeable men here. There is no "good guy." The battles waged between the two men, so different, yet so similar, are played with such intimacy of detail. As a last-minute actor change, Dano steps up to Day-Lewis' challenge with a strong showing. But let's face it ... it's Day-Lewis' tour de force here. He carries this film with a weight & depth rarely witnessed in modern cinema. & slugs you one hard & fast in the gut with his power. A must-see.