Lincoln

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln starring Daniel Day-Lewis as our 16th president is a decent at best historical bio-pic, never fully engaging the audience past the interest of its source material. A movie I reviewed earlier this week, Argo, was a great example of how to make a film about historical events where the audience already knows the outcome. Even Spielberg's own Munich does a fine job of this. But Lincoln never feels like more than watching a documentary about the passing of the thirteenth amendment; and if it were going to pass at that, I feel like PBS or the History Channel could do a much better job. There are still some great acting performances, most notably from Tommy Lee Jones, as well as the patented over-acting of Day-Lewis, but Lincoln mainly disappoints.

During the American Civil War, much of the debate between the Union and the Confederacy was over the provision of slavery. The South's economy was based upon slavery, and felt it should not be abolished, while leaders from the north, for one reason or another, were for a ban on slavery. Before his second term, President Lincoln did everything he could to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and outlaw slavery. He needed to do this before the southern states were re-admitted to the union in order to avoid their votes being counted. The story of Lincoln is of our President's attempt to pass this amendment, and what it took to do this. Along the way we get glimpses of Lincoln's family life, from his wife Mary Todd (Sally Field) to his sons Tad and Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in what seems like his 10th blockbuster role of the year). Lincoln needs to get this amendment passed before there is peace, and he will not stop until he passes it.

The first 30 minutes of Lincoln seemed to drag on, much like I was tuning in to C-SPAN. Politicians, including Lincoln, would give in depth political reasoning for and against the Thirteenth Amendment. This is fascinating at first, but after a while it begins to tire. The most interesting character in the movie is Tommy Lee Jones' Thaddeus Stevens, a member of the House of Representatives who is for the amendment. He entertains just as much as any, and I loved every moment of his on screen. Further entertaining were the three "lobbyists", or party men who tried to sway votes, as played by James Spader, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Hawkes. These three offer some funny moments, and Spader shines. He definitely needed to make up for his dreadful role on "The Office" last year, playing the worst TV character ever, Robert California.

After these characters, everyone else chugs along at a snails pace. Day-Lewis immerses himself as Lincoln and it shows, but I still get the feeling that he is overacting like he always does. Ditto for Sally Field as Mary Todd. One of my biggest complaints was the sheer VOLUME of Abraham Lincoln monologues. Understandably a movie about one of our nation's most fabled speech makers would have some monologues, but it seems like Abe has one every 15 minutes. After a while I stopped looking for meaning in all of them.  Unlike Argo, Spielberg fails to capture the tension of portraying a scene where the outcome is already decided. The vote to enact the Thirteenth Amendment should be an intense scene, but it fails to capture anything magical.

Lincoln is extremely well made, just a tad on the boring side. If you want to learn about the passage of the thirteenth amendment, scour Netflix for a documentary about it, it will be much more informative than Lincoln.

2.5/5