This is the best film of 2007.
Loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, which most people have probably never even heard of much less read, Let There Be Blood is about oil man Daniel Plainview making his fortune at the turn of the 20th century in California. He's a money hungry swindler, the kind of self-made capitalist titan that is synonymous with the American legacy - Plainview in particular has a certain mania, a single-minded intensity tinged with insanity.
Daniel Day-Lewis is extraordinary in what is easily the best acting performance of the year and probably of this decade (as good as he was in Gangs of New York, there was just too much DiCaprio). I could not take my eyes off him. Plainview goes from slightly insane self-made millionaire to a reclusive, very insane multi-millionaire and every second of it is awesome to behold. Even the over the top ending takes nothing away from it. It harkens back to the kind of transcendent performance of a vintage Marlon Brando. Every other actor in the film is made to look amateurish in comparison, but Plainview commands the lion's share of screen time so it's irrelevant. Paul Dano (the mute kid from Little Miss Sunshine) plays the the principal antagonist, an evangelical preacher. He is way out of his league next to Daniel Day-Lewis, but it doesn't matter.
The film is beautifully shot in an understated way, and the score from Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood, which relies heavily on dissonance, is superb.
Let There Be Blood owes a lot to Citizen Kane and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I can't say if it has a larger political, social or metaphysical message that is intended to reveal some hidden truth about human nature. It doesn't matter. This is one of those rare films where the raw force and virtuosity of a single performance explodes all notions of convention, form and content and rockets the film into some higher plane where it exists next to Jesus and Ghandi.