2012
145 minutes
rated PG-13
by Scott Mendelson
In terms of long-gestating passion projects, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (trailer/background) is much closer to Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd than Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. In what may qualify as irony, the film is slightly undone mostly by its perceived duty to be incredibly important. Yes, the film is about an very important person (Abraham Lincoln) during what may arguably be the most important portion of his life (his month-long battle to bring about a constitutional end to slavery), but Spielberg's refreshingly micro-targeted biopic is at its best when it is lightest on its feet, telling what almost amounts to a political caper set at the end of the Civil War. Tony Kushner's literate and thoughtful screenplay (based on a portion of Doris Kearns Goodwin's A Team of Rivals) stages what amounts to a 1860s-set series arc from The West Wing, as a wise president blessed with verbal diarrhea articulates grand ideas and espouses telling anecdotes while those on his staff do the political dirty work to make great things happen. As a look into how politics worked in the mid-1800s, and of course how it still works today, it's surprisingly funny and endlessly compelling. But the need to create a defining portrait of our sixteenth president creates both needlessly solemn subplots and some narrative repetition that prevents true greatness.
