Lincoln review: Daniel Day-Lewis can't save Spielberg's failed epic

It was with some trepidation that I finally brought myself to watch Lincoln. The legendary tale of 16th American president Abraham Lincoln and his battle to outlaw slavery in America has been told countless times on screen, stage and page, and I'd wondered if even the talents of Daniel Day-Lewis and Steven Spielberg could bring anything new to this crowded scene. Even when the film received its first glowing reviews and won its Oscars, my doubt continued, and while watching the film I soon realised that my original fears were completely correct.

Lincoln's biography has become so rooted in popular culture that attempting to avoid spoiling the plot of the film seems pointless; his Gettysburg Address is the most quoted speech in American history and his eventual assassination is one of the most famous killings of all time. However, Spielberg's film opts to almost totally ignore these iconic elements, and instead focuses entirely on Lincoln's quest to instate the thirteenth amendment to the American Constitution, thereby banning the ownership of slaves. While it's reasonable to assume that everyone knows most of Lincoln's story anyway and doesn't need it spoon fed to them, devoting an entire two hour movie to this single event creates the first of the film's problems: it's incredibly dull. Far from the sprawling epic of battles and bravery that the trailers would have you believe, the film largely resides in underlit rooms and long, unmoving camera shots while various political figures furiously argue their cases. While I have great respect to this total refusal to dumb down the plot, there's no denying that Lincoln is not an entertaining film. In fact, I almost found myself nodding off at several points, particularly a seeming endless sequence where the votes of the House of Representatives on the matter of amending the Constitution are read out.

The plot is also extremely slow, unsurprising considering the length of the movie and the lack of actual events, but this only adds to the general boredom. Despite the script being crisp and intelligent, most of the characters are simply two dimensional cut-outs, with Sally Field's Mary Lincoln proving especially predictable. Of course, Lincoln does get one thing very, very right: the casting of Daniel Day-Lewis as the president himself. Always an actor known for his utter commitment to his roles, Day-Lewis gives possibly the best performance of any Lincoln biopic, deservedly winning an Oscar for a showing that is both brilliantly witty and deadly serious, an utterly believable character. Tommy Lee-Jones also shines as radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens.

Phenomenal as these performances are, they can't rescue Lincoln. Day-Lewis' talents are wasted as Spielberg fails to recapture the excitement and tension that filled his earlier films, and Lincoln becomes dull, overlong and pointless. If it was not for Day Lewis himself, Lincoln would be lost among a sea of similar, all American pictures. As it is, Lincoln is saved from being an embarrassment, but that's simply not good enough considering how great it could have been.

5/10