Thankfully we all know how it ends.
The story of the risks US President Abraham Lincoln took to do the right thing, abolish slavery and end the Civil War, is one worth telling over and over and over again. Daniel Day-Lewis was jaw-droppingly good as the title character. (He won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.) Â Day-Lewis morphs into his roles, losing any trace of his British accent, and he is a master of his craft. Â Watching him brought to mind his previously amazing performances in a long list of films including My Left Foot, The Last of the Mohicans and Gangs of New York – the latter I found almost unwatchable except for his commanding presence.
I have to imagine that Lincoln drew the praise it did due to the quality of the acting because as a film, it was about as compelling as C-Span. Â It’s composed of cumbersome, dry dialogue, based on political procedures, akin to watching a cooking show where the chef reads the recipe into the camera without ever touching an ingredient. Â It didn’t help matters that the audio was very uneven in the On Demand version of the movie we attempted to watch, my mild hearing issues notwithstanding. Â The phrase “dry as a popcorn fart” seems appropriate here. The story and the performances must have carried it because the script certainly didn’t.
There are few moments in our history as a species that are as important as what Lincoln accomplished but unless the second half of the film picked up considerably, we felt the story wasn’t very well told. Â Yes, we didn’t make it through the entire film and we were unanimous on that decision. Â Like I said, it’s good that we already know how it ends.