Anderson also serves up a powerful message about the wages of sin, especially greed.  Sadly, however, he offers no redemption—no message of hope about how we might defeat a man like Plainview.  Especially if that man is ourselves.

DVD EXTRAS:

• None

CAUTIONS:

• Drugs/Alcohol:  Characters drink alcohol and/or smoke cigarettes in multiple scenes throughout film.  In one scene, an adult gives alcohol to a baby; later, adult puts alcohol in baby’s bottle.  Multiple scenes where characters are drunk, including one where preacher drinks shots of alcohol.
• Language/Profanity:  Two or three profanities and an equal number of (mild) obscenities.  In one scene, a man curses his son and calls him names.
• Sexual Content/Nudity:  One scene in a brothel, with couples embracing in the background (blurred).  No nudity.  One mention of lust in a church setting.
• Violence:  A man falls from a ladder and breaks his leg, then drags himself into town (shot of twisted bone under pants); two deaths due to falling objects; a bloody body is dragged up from the bottom of an oil rig and examined; a boy is injured during an oil rig blast; a preacher repeatedly slaps a man to rid him of “demons;” a character murders a man with a gunshot to the head (very little blood; shot is partially obscured by murderer’s hand but victim cries in pain); a boy sets fire to a house; a father abandons his adolescent son, who screams in fear and begs him not to; several fistfights, one of which is very violent; one character murders another by beating him to death with club-like object (body is offscreen during murder, then seen face down, with blood seeping from beneath face and splattered onto walls.