With nearly 3 hours and from a time frame of 30-40 years, the characters is underdeveloped, and many things were left unexplained, great scenes that lead to no where and no notion of where it came from and then it repeat again in another decades but the things were all the same in which nobody care.

It's unconvincing to me that the protagonist although an greedy oilman that show no hints of insanity suddenly lost it and bashing someone head in with no conflicts, unprovoked or anything his business could lead to. Perhaps was just to tell us somehow there will be blood as the title stated.

His relationship with his adopted son add nothing to the story but conflicting it self. It convinced me he loves him enough but from nowhere he's telling us the otherwise but then unconvincing. He might as well kill HW too. And his son to put fire on his father bed for unknown reason and uncalled for. The character has no depth despite of his many on screen times. Most of the times, he was just there.

The 2 things spark my interest the most is the oil drilling business which show us how their technical improvement over years, and the ignorant country folks and their religion and believe. Both were interesting things to me but it doesn't fit in the story and I rather watch 2 different documentary about that on discovery channel. It did the movie a big favor by covering the lack of story in this ermm, story.

The priest for unknown reason fake an identity, who jump his father while leaving mud on his face unwashed, were obvious a phony one at the first place and were there, like HW, for no reason other than they have some relationship with the protagonist. Like Paul performance but to me he still strike me as he can't pull off someone as big and as charismatic of Eli Sunday, the well loved priest. But it is all good to me as I'm glad not some other great talent like Johnny Depp were casted for the waste.

In the end, nobody care about HW, or the priest or the dead Henry, or anyone dies, or Daniel himself other than their own. I dont have to be taxi driver with no life desperately trying to get laid, or a ruthless criminal to get what is in their mind of Travis Bickle or Alex in Clockwork Orange but I guess I have to be a 1910an mines man turn oilman who happens to adopted a son, broke his leg, run into same fake priest to truly understand the movie.

I like long movies in particular and most of the time keep hoping that the movie wont end. I can wait for 10 minutes in a static screen for a dialogue to take place while harvesting the feeling and nostalgic. But in this case, I keep waiting for something to happen and at the end none.
From the start, it seems like very interesting and you are sucked to it 100%, then nothing actually happen and it goes on and on and on and on and on and the movie end. I spend sometimes thinking was it I missed something but just couldnt get it back.

Unlike burga, often the time I didn't realize the score in the background as it take me into the story but only realize how great they are after several times watching or when they come back into my mind after I sit there and contemplating about the movie. In this case, the scores take over the movie as It keep wanting me to listen to it than watching the movie. Yeah, they got the term for it, it's called distracting. Don't get me wrong, it was great and something new but it was unfitted in this case. Imagine the terminator 2 scores playing in a romantic love story. The scores still great to listen to but it doesn't belong to where it is.

I can go on and write more but there will always be someone agree and disagree. You have to see it yourself people. Watch it and tell me what do you think.