The surest bet amongst the Oscar contenders is that the best actor award will go to Daniel Day-Lewis for his performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's There will be blood.

This is a turn-of-the-century period drama beginning in 1898 when silver prospector Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis), a man who lives up to his name.

Plainview isn't one of the big boys in the oil industry. He began from small upbringings, getting his hands dirty as a silver miner, but making one or two oil discoveries affords Plainview the opportunity to mix with the bigboys.

On the way, he takes on the responsibility of looking after an orphaned child HW (Dillon Freasier) when one of the men working for him dies in an accident. The young boy helps Plainview to promote himself as an upright family man to possible prospectors and Plainview is happy with him, until in an unfortunate accident, HW loses his hearing.

By now, Plainview is playing a high-stakes game with numbers, employees and resources and he's going to have to make all the right choices if he's going to stay ahead of the game, but will becoming a megalomaniac tycoon change him as a person? In Little Boston, Plainview plays a devious game with villagers and the man most distrusting of him is Eli (Paul Dano), a fake religious pastor who has a hold over the whole community. Eli will become an important rival as Plainview gradually sells his soul to the Devil.

Paul Thomas Anderson has great pedigree as a writer-director (Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Hard Eight) and his work here with Daniel Day-Lewis as the hard-edged Plainview is brilliantly realized. Plainview's interaction with a young boy that he adopts as his own son, is fascinating, as is Plainview's interaction with a man who claims to be his long-lost brother and his distrust of the popular but formidable local vicar.

It's fairly easy to watch the 157 minute tale of greed, betrayal and trust and distrustwithout looking at your watch at any point, Daniel Day-Lewis's performance is that enthralling.

However, the film is a little uneven, in that you are left searching for a payoff. The same accusation could be levelled at Anderson's previous film Magnolia, which contained great ingredients, but didn't wholly deliver.

Attention to period detail and Plainview's mannerisms convey the era well. You're easily swung over by the look of these rugged pioneers driving their primitive pieces of machinery into the ground in the hope of striking it lucky.

Full marks to Paul Thomas Anderson for being brave enough to put in front of the camera characters who are both complex and not wholly sympathetic. The only person the audience that can really attach to being Plainview's adopted son HW.

Overall, you could be forgiven for thinking that Day-Lewis's tour de force performance is really the only meaningful part of a film offers a study of how one man's greed causes his descent into hell.