Lincoln

Year: 2012

Grade: B-

Country: USA

Director: Spielberg

Review

the production, acting and words were all good. unfortunately it’s an overly long and heavy handed film. as a west wing person and political junkie i liked some of the wrangling with the lobbyists and the vote buying and that kind of thing, but that’s not for everyone. daniel day-lewis will probably win the oscar. what else is new? beyond those things the film wasn’t all that interesting. to me, the most interesting thing about the film was that it points out just how impure the whole system is. even a guy like lincoln, who is supposedly one of our most pure presidents, lied to congress, was implicit in buying votes, etc. to get this piece of legislation (13th amendment) passed. the 14th amendment passed a couple months later and the 15th amendment passed about 18 months after that. so, it would seem (and the film confirms this at one point), that the amendment was basically inevitable anyway. the counter argument would be that without the 13th amendment being passed, the 14th and 15th amendments wouldn’t have had a chance, or would have taken much longer. i don’t buy that argument.

Watched in theater