Movie Review #45 Lincoln (2012)

- My hat is off to you

Steven Spielberg is back yet again bringing another movie to the eyes and hearts of fans everywhere. It's hard to pick a movie of his and say that it is bad, but if I had to pick one, it would be War Horse (2011) which was nominated for an Oscar and I thought to be utterly ridiculous at many points throughout the movie. But this is a more historical factual movie than War Horse and is a serious contender for Best Film of the year, so I came into this movie with an open heart, hoping to put Lincoln safely in there for safe-keeping until perhaps another best film nomination kicked it out.

Lincoln is up for a whopping 12 Academy Awards. Best Picture, Lead Actor, Supporting Male and Female, Director, Previously Published Writing, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Original Score, and finally Sound Mixing. With 12 nominations it's hard to think that it won't win a few. I don't really see it winning Best Picture but it could easily garner Best Actor and Supporting Male, perhaps along with a few others. I'd expect Lincoln to come away with no less than four Oscars.

The movie starts with Lincoln (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) on the battlefield conversing with some soldiers (two black soldiers and two white ones.) We learn a few things right off the bat. The white soldiers are pretty dumb and obnoxious and the black soldiers are dignified and can quote verbatim. It's not so much far-fetched since the remembering of a quote by a man who wants to abolish slavery seems likely. A small gripe I have is that as far as soldiers fighting go this introduction is the first and last stop in this line. What got me was that while Abraham Lincoln is certainly the main character it isn't so much about him as it is the vote that he wanted, the vote to abolish slavery just prior to the end of the Civil War (If this is any bit spoiler-ish to you, perhaps you are not as well versed in history as you thought). I don't know a whole lot about this period in American history so while I can not say how inaccurate it is or is not, I know the general story and nothing was too far-fetched and the movie, in general, flows easily.

With a 150 minute run time there are certainly some sequences I'd cut, his eldest son's Robert (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) storyline, while perhaps very important to Abraham Lincoln and his family at the time, had very little bearing to the scope of the vote in the movie and was unnecessary padding to the movie. I also felt that Molly Lincoln (played by Sally Field) served very little purpose to the movie. Some stern faces and a couple of arguments with Lincoln himself she no more moved the story along than her son. I am honestly puzzled by Sally Field's nomination for best supporting actress especially given her very limited time on screen. While Lincoln and one of his cohorts such as Thaddeus Stevens (played by Tommy Lee Jones) stole the entire movie. The aforementioned argument between Abe and Molly is so one sided in Abe's favour that I felt bad for Sally Field. She no more held my attention during that argument then the carpet. Day-Lewis owns that scene left, right and centre. Abraham's stories are lessons throughout the movie and bewilder many viewers and characters within the movie but I think that is the point, and that they are key to the movie. They show his perspective to each situation and his understanding and scope of everything. The movie may not be exactly about him as I said, but he does hold all the lessons. I love his story telling, I imagine he'd capture the ears and hearts of many people after telling a story, a true sign of story telling. Something I'm sure you all know by now that I put in high regards. I think one of my biggest gripes with the movie would be the ending which would have been so much stronger had it ended about five minutes earlier with him walking down the hallway. The ending as we know it seemed tacked on and more biography-like which was too little too late by that time. You spend so much time with getting slavery abolished that his death is inconsequential to the story.

Grumpy Sally.

Lincoln is lengthy, and it is no action flick. It's a heavy drama with long-winded conversations with a really large cast many of which aren't fully developed other than their political stance. This is acceptable since the movie is about the abolishment of slavery vote but the repetition of some characters names for recognition wouldn't have hurt. I wouldn't recommend this to the average viewer, and history majors may be displeased by the information that is absent and/or falsely added. But if you're up for political intrigue Lincoln is a good bet.

I give it 7/10

PS: He keeps his speeches in his hat, dapper and useful.