There Will Be Blood “becomes an increasingly violent (and comical) struggle in which each man humiliates the other, leading to the murderous final scene, which gushes as far over the top as one of Daniel [Plainview]’s wells. The scene is a mistake, but I think I know why it happened.
“[Paul Thomas] Anderson started out as an independent filmmaker, with Hard Eight (’96) and Boogie Nights (’97). In Blood, he has taken on central American themes and established a style of prodigious grandeur. Yet some part of him must have rebelled against canonization. The last scene is a blast of defiance — or perhaps of despair. But, like almost everything else in the movie, it’s astonishing.” — from David Denby‘s review in teh 12.17 New Yorker.
