Lincoln (***)

Despite the title, this is not a biography, but a film about the legislative process, though with the 16th U.S. president (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the featured role. Though it veritably canonizes the man, it’s still a film for political and historical junkies more than those who simply like films about important personages. Certainly Lincoln did not have the voice of an important personage, if we can believe the historical accounts and Day-Lewis’s attempt at re-creating his thin voice. Instead, he carries the day by always seeming thoughtful and only seeming forceful when the occasion suits.

Partly basing his account on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, utilizing a script by Tony Kushner, director Steven Spielberg focuses on the last four months of Lincoln’s life, in particular the push to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in January 1865. With not enough representatives of Lincoln’s own Republican party to guarantee passage, logrolling, arm-twisting, and the occasion appeal to principal are the order of the day to secure the 20 or so Democratic votes needed. Besides placating his own cabinet, who question the timing of the vote, Lincoln and his designated representatives face two dangers: first, that word of a possible negotiated end to the war will cost the votes of those who only favor the amendment because it might hasten that end, and second, that radical Republicans such as Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) will frighten potential yes votes by speaking of voting rights and the equality of the races.

By not really challenging any of Lincoln’s actions, the film does not quite place us in the moment in the way a film like Primary Colors, centered around a more obviously flawed politician (based on Bill Clinton), does. That is, one watches the film with the present-day certitude that the president’s course was correct, as we know that it did result in the abolition of slavery. When Lincoln speaks of violating the Constitution to accomplish his larger goal of protecting the union, no character makes a strong argument against his having done so. Will the controversial security policies of the last decade seem as uncontroversial in 150 years? In any case, the film makes the best possible case for pragmatism and for politics in service of principle being a worthy calling.

What does place us in the moment is Day-Lewis’s performance, which would be uncanny even if Lincoln were not a famous figure. His speech sounds decidely pre-modern, in contrast to most of the other actors. His dialogue, filled with Lincoln’s actual recorded words (“flub-dubs” being one insult in the script), contrast also with a few more modern phrasings elsewhere (e.g., “I’ll be fucked,” a figurative phrase that seems out of time). Additionally, the dingy rooms and sets seem appropriate. The amendment and the vote-gathering process account for most of the drama, but the 2.5-hour film also takes time to account for the president’s family life, including a nuanced portrait of his relationships with the First Lady (Sally Field) and older son Robert. (A younger son, Tad, lived at the White House.) The film does move forward to the assassination, and a coda doubles back to Lincoln reading the Second Inaugural Address, famous for speaking of “malice toward none; with charity for all.” As does the clunky opening, the scene looks forward and makes one wish that attitude prevailed everywhere and in every person.

IMDb link

viewed 12/2/12 4:45 pm at Ritz 16 and reviewed 12/2/12

The Conspirator (***)

It may be the JFK assassination that has captured the public imagination of the generations since. But of the four presidential assassins (or seven, counting those who shot at but did not kill a president), only John Wilkes Booth is known beyond doubt to have been part of a conspiracy. And of the eight alleged conspirators tried via military tribunal in the immediate aftermath of President Lincoln’s killing, only one, Mary Surratt, was a woman. As the mother of another suspected conspirator and the owner of a boardinghouse where the Booth and other plotters had held meetings, she was either an abetter of the assassins or merely the victim of unfortunate associations. Robert Redford’s film allows for both possibilities, which makes it a fairer, if less exciting, film than, say, JFK.

This account of Surrat’s trial starts off slightly shakily. It’s a minor point, but how strange to begin a Civil War movie with soldiers telling a joke whose punch line involves a freezer. The first soldier (James McAvoy) never gets to the punch line, but still, between that and his friend being played by Apple Computer pitchman Justin Long, I was taken out of the (1863) moment. The young actors, including McAvoy, who turns out to play the main character, make no attempt at period accents. The assassination itself is staged in unexciting fashion, and the plot advanced via the newspaper clipping techniques so we can get to where the movie really begins. McAvoy is the lawyer asked to defend Surratt.

IMDB link

viewed at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 6/1/11

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (**3/4)

This sequel to 2004’s National Treasure is like a fifth-generation carbon copy, looking just like the original, only a little shoddier. A couple of fairly entertaining action sequences are supported by scaffolding even more precarious than the barely balanced platform hidden behind Mount Rushmore where the cast find themselves in the climax. earlier, there’s a car chase through London, wherein hero Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) drives on the wrong side of the road but still escapes from the nominal villain (Ed Harris). Harris’s character is a rival historian/treasure hunter with the virtue of being ambiguous, but the liability of making hardly any sense. Neither does the rest of the movie. Rather than suspension of disbelief, suspension of all higher brain functions may be required to enjoy this written-by-a-committee sequel.

Cage is re-joined by most of part one’s cast. Love interest/document expert Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) is separated from Gates, so he can woo her again. Friend Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) returns as the stock character of the electronics expert who can defeat the Buckingham Palace computer system in 30 seconds but can’t get a girlfriend. Jon Voigt as Ben’s dad has a bigger part than before, and Ben also has at his disposal a linguistics expert played by Helen Mirren. Ben’s role is to look at an obscure clue in Paris and realize seconds later that he needs to break into the queen’s desk in London. Somehow this will all clear Gates’s ancestor of having conspired with President Lincoln’s assassin.

This all goes by so fast you won’t have time to ponder all the implausibilities. It will test the resolve of the “it’s just a movie” crowd, but assuming that a semblance of realism is not an issue, it has very much the same fun feel as the original Treasure, and in Mirren actually has one thing that’s better. Touching on familiar bits of history without being intellectual, these popcorn sellers fill a niche for those seeking an all-ages adventure without much violence, but the first one was the real Treasure.


IMDB link


reviewed 1/17/08