Daniel Day-Lewis was unsettled by the script of 'There Will Be Blood'. And for good reason — its central character, the part he was to play, is probably one of the most disturbing individuals you're likely to find outside a maximum security psychiatric ward. An unscrupulous oil prospector driven by an insatiable greed, treading on people as if they're cockroaches, he's, quite simply, barking mad.

Daniel Plainview is even more unsettling when brought to life by Day-Lewis, who revisits his already wild-eyed Bill the Butcher from 'Gangs Of New York' and dials up the crazy. Quite clearly grandstanding for the Academy, like Russell Crowe and Philip Seymour Hoffman just before him, there's nothing subtle about his masterful look-at-me vote-for-me performance. Everything is painted in the broadest brushstrokes — the tyranny, the deceit, the bitterness, the sorrow, the stubbornness, the sweat — not unlike a frenzied Jackson Pollock painting you don’t really understand but can’t look away from.

It's a feverish performance from the perpetually clammy Day-Lewis who, typically, immersed himself in the role to such an extent that he remained in character throughout nearly four months of shooting. It must have done his head in — resulting in more than just a sense of unsettlement — but there was clearly method to his madness. The focal point in almost every single shot of the 158 minute film — often in extreme close-up — he never falters. The clipped speaking style, the affected poncy accent, the relentless ambition, the unpredictable madness bubbling beneath the surface are ever present as the huckster rises to a powerful businessman.

Plainview is, as he puts it, an oil man: he finds it, he drills for it, and he makes money from it. But he's also a smooth talking trickster who — by playing the honest, charming single parent with good, wholesome family values — railroads unsuspecting God-fearing people into handing over their oil-rich land at a pittance. With the duplicitous act — and heartfelt speeches — perfected, he steadily grows his empire, running into little opposition until arriving at the backwater town of Little Boston.

Offering little but dust and tumbleweed (and the promise of oil), it's the stomping ground of Eli Sunday, a charismatic teenage preacher who makes Billy Graham seem quiet and withdrawn. Preaching fire and brimstone to a captive audience, he's not too happy that his position of authority could be usurped by a false prophet (Plainview) who, in turn, isn’t exactly pleased to be undermined by an overzealous religious figure.

And so develops what writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has described as a boxing match between two brothers. Both physical (at one point a baptism turns into a brutal exorcism) and verbal ("I drink your milkshake, I drink it up!" screams an unhinged Plainview much later) it's a rivalry so much more ambiguous than the traditional good versus evil situation. With Paul Dano as the fervent Eli holding his own against the monumental Day-Lewis, neither is portrayed in the best light throughout their bitter conflict of wills — a conflict that, ultimately, ends in a pyrrhic victory.

It's testament to Anderson that his film can support this epic struggle, the megalomaniac lead character, and their symbolic representations (subtle warnings about the relationship between church and state, and the greed for oil respectively) without unravelling. Sure, the adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1920s novel 'Oil!' suffers from the usual episodic nature of most life stories, a few too many sweeping shots of barren landscapes, and an overlong middle stretch. But the sheer drama is matched by a perpetual sense of foreboding to create the perfect platform for its star's Oscar campaign. And on that front 'There Will Be Blood' is a big, bold, barking mad success.