Spoiler Points for There Will Be Blood (2007)

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Click Poster to Purchase

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Spoiler Points for There Will Be Blood (2008) [R] 158 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.75
DVD Release Date: 8 April 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer

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Click to read the non-spoiler review

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Click to see photos from the Premiere of There Will Be Blood

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Spoiler Points:
• Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) makes his first few bucks prospecting for metals. A small claim brings him sufficient capital to get into the oil prospecting business.
• He's seen at one point after 1902 suddenly riding the train with a baby.
• He prospects and strikes it semi-rich with the Coyote Well that brings him sufficient capital that he and his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier) secure the good nature of other wells bringing him some notoriety as an oil man—though more because he proclaims himself to be one than possibly because he really is.
• An ungainly fellow named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) catches Daniel after one of his salesmanship spiels and announces he's holding information of an enormous claim if only he might be paid a large sum of money. Fletcher Hamilton (Ciarán Hinds) and Daniel show skepticism, but Daniel is drawn in by the boy's showmanship as being an amateur version of his own and pays him the money.
• Posing as quail hunters, Daniel and H.W. scout the locale known as the Sunday Ranch in Little Boston. H.W. actually finds oil. Daniel plays down his belief as to the vast ocean of oil under the surrounding ranches and sets about buying everyone's land at reduced prices—the land it barely hospitable. One holdout Bandy (Hans Howes) wants him to visit in person, but Daniel scoffs and ignores the guy—something that would later prove quite costly to his ego.
• Daniel also must appear to be in line with the plans of the local healer and vessel of the Lord, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) who looks suspiciously like Paul Sunday and may, in fact, be Paul Sunday. Daniel never addresses this. He just goes along with a planned donation to Eli's church as he basically steals up all the land.
• Eli suggests that Daniel have him come and bless Oil Well #1 to ensure its success. Daniel agrees, but when the opening occurs, he steals all of Eli's words, names the well after Eli's sister, Mary, and has H.W. start the drilling.
• Daniel is quite affectionate toward H.W., he obviously adores the little boy--the only person in the film for whom he ever demonstrates even a modicum of love, but is it all an act?
• Daniel and H.W. discuss a plan to build a pipeline from Little Boston to the coast so they can make the real money and not have to pay the railroads to move the oil sucking up a lot of the profits.
• A man bearing a letter from his sister pops up claiming to be Daniel's brother by another mother (yes, that's the language used in the film). His name is Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor), and he wants to be allowed to be Daniel's sidekick. Daniel has no one to trust and begins to let Henry into his inner circle a bit.
• Two tragedies occur in a row, Daniel should have gotten Eli's blessing, put the project at risk. A man is killed in the shaft and then the drill hits a gas pocket. The resulting explosion of gas tosses H.W. off his perch and causes permanent hearing loss. Daniel is distraught beyond measure, though it's not clear if it's more because he really loves the boy or he'll no longer have a cute face to assist in sales.
• After nearly burning down their home, Daniel has H.W. sent away to a special school to learn to do something about his hearing loss. H.W. is furious about being sent away.
• As oil profits soar, Eli comes to ask for the promised donation to the church, and Daniel knocks him around and shoves him into the mud nearly killing him.
• Standard Oil approaches Daniel offering to buy all his land and oil rights. He scoffs at their price and the way the H.M. Tilford (David Warshofsky) keeps suggesting it will allow him more time to raise his son.
• Henry and Daniel stake out a pathway from Little Boston to the sea to build a pipeline. Eventually, they discover a problem. They don't own Bandy's Ranch which would add 50 miles of pipeline to go around. Daniel goes to see Bandy, but he's away for a week.
• Henry leeches off Daniel's success and eventually Daniel catches on during a conversation they are having about an old house near where Daniel grew up in his native Wisconsin. He discovers that Henry is lying and kills him.
• Bandy seems to be aware of the murder, so when Daniel approaches him to sell his land, Bandy has the upper hand. He demands that Daniel get baptized in Eli's church and get rid of all his sins. Daniel goes along with it so he can build the pipeline.
• H.W. returns from school with a special teacher who's versed in sign language to continue to coach and tutor him. Daniel is overjoyed. He makes a deal to sell his oil from the pipeline to Union Oil Company and takes H.W. out for steaks. There he makes an ugly scene in the restaurant when he runs into H.M. Tilford. He brags that he has his son and his pipeline and a fat deal from Union Oil.
• The story then jumps into the future. Daniel is a multi-millionaire living in an amazing mansion. He's become incredibly reclusive and suspicious, however, in his advanced age.
• H.W., now grown up and played by Russell Harvard, comes to tell his 'father' that he's going to Mexico with his fiancée to start his own oil company. Daniel flips his lid, says a bunch of nasty things, not the least of which was a pronouncement, true or false, that H.W. was not his true son, rather he found him in a basket. H.W. is devastated and leaves vowing to love his father but never hoping to see him again.
• Shortly there after, Eli Sunday shows up asking for money and claiming he can finally get some other ranchers to sell to Daniel. Daniel plays along until he flips out and explains to Eli that the land he has for sale is tapped. They engage in a physical game of gat and mouse that ends with Eli getting his skull caved in by one of Daniel's bowling pins from his indoor alley. There will be blood.