'There Will Be Blood' fails to strike it rich

(C-) More oil and sweat than passion and ideas course through There Will Be Blood, a film about the California petroleum boom of the early 20th century that is as anemic as it is ambitious. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a rise-and-fall film of the least imaginative kind. From 1898 through the Roaring '20s, the central character, Daniel Plainview, achieves towering financial success. Morally he scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

By Michael Sragow

January 11, 2008