In the name of contrivance

Rating: 1/10 (30 March 2019)

Daniel Day-Lewis has sort of ruined his oeuvre with those cartoonish villains. So many of his glares now read as psychopathic, it always feels like he's about to chop someone with a cleaver. He overacts like mad. He probably has more horsepower than any other actor though. His outbursts and emotion. It's far too much to present a serious political event and hijack it into theater of insanity method acting. Although those images and moments of him suffering are iconic out of almost Schindler's List, is it not a bit much?
The other argument for being out the seams is contrasting the father's stone-face. But I don't fully buy 'it's about the father-son' either when the IRA is torching prison-guards into flame and the 'don't show it to the defense' scripting nonsense. The whole movie, it's dated and forced, but to be fair I wish all our Oscar bait today was full of such passions.