All hail the masterclass

BJs Grade:

A

Outstanding film, way more funny moments than one might expect. The gravity of every single scene is amazing. DDL and TLJ put up the two best performances I have seen this year. The rest of the cast was aces as well.

C, incredibly boring and snail pace, only worth watching for Day-Lewis's performance

Excellent film. Excellent story, start-to-finish. Even though it's about real people and a very real time in history, it can be viewed as just a compelling presidential film as well. The acting is superb, of course. I can't say a ton else that hasn't been said.

***1/2

Also,

the only reason I gave this three and a half stars and not a full four is because there are just a few scenes, for me personally, that unfortunately drag more than I would've liked. I never found it boring though.

DDL is exceptional, but I also found myself waiting for scenes with Tommy Lee Jones, as well as James Spader. Spader wins the award for Actor Having Most Fun In A Film About Abraham Lincoln Abolishing Slavery.

I finally rented this and watched it. I liked how it painted Lincoln as this complex man, yet incredibly brilliant politician. I think it is incredible that instead of thinking of the actor and then the person they are portraying, the minutes I saw DDL I could only think of Lincoln and never the actor. Overall a great historical piece.

A

Great film with some strong messages...

I sort of was floored when I realized the way the Republicans were yelling at the democrats that they were on the wrong side of history on Slavery.

Just shows you how much things can change.

It was alright. After all those glowing reviews I've read, I was a bit disapointed with the movie. Day-Lewis is great of course and there is some really well written dialogue, but it never managed to glue my eyes to the screen. Only thing I loved was Spaders performance. He was just awesome.

Lincoln is a project years in the making, and the final product is worth the wait. Despite a lack of big flourishes compared with his most recent work, this is Steven Spielberg's best movie since Munich. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this film also reunites Spielberg with his Munich screenwriter Tony Kushner, whose script here is a masterful one that focuses almost entirely on just one month of its subject's life, yet still captures the scope of the situation at the time. Even with dialogue comprising most of the 149-minute running time, the power of the script and the acting is so immediate that it always feels as if a great deal is at stake - which it should, given all that was hanging in the balance as the vote on the 13th Amendment drew near. Given the quality of the script and the credentials of the cast assembled, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that this is also one of the best acted movies of the year to date. As Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis turns in another excellent performance. As usual with Day-Lewis, it looks and sounds as if he is inhabiting the character, and he is intensely compelling to watch even though the performance is much quieter and less showy than his two other acclaimed roles from the past decade. Whether he wins a third Oscar for his work remains to be seen, but accolades will not be undeserving. Tommy Lee Jones also knocks some scenes out of the park, while Sally Field brings enough raw emotion to her part to make the character pop as more than a wife in the background, and the rest of the ridiculously talented class slips well into their relatively smaller roles. Taking on a subject with as many points of interest as Lincoln's presidency was always going to be a challenge, but the filmmakers have succeeded in cutting out a slice that serves not only as an apt encapsulation of that period, but also as an exceptionally riveting drama. This is one of the year's best movies.

A

I enjoyed this film, but it did not quite live up to my lofty expectations after all the hype it received. The beginning and the end of the film are thoroughly engrossing. The middle is very slow, and that is what bumps my grade down from an A. The life of Lincoln was so full of interesting events, I couldn't help but be disappointed a few more weren't shown. I realize how linear and uninteresting a movie just going through his life would have been, but so much focus on this one amendment I didn't feel could really have sustained interest for a 2 and a half hour movie. Better than Argo, but Silver Linings Playbook and Life of Pi were both better, and I personally enjoyed Les Miserables more, though I can easily see this is technically the better film.

B