An unsatisfying hagiography rife with creaky one-liners

Rating: 3/10 (17 June 2013)

Historical accuracy is not a necessity in movies, but one would have thought we had advanced beyond hagiography in our biopics. When Lincoln speaks, the slow zoom and the swelling music give the obnoxious impression that God himself is speaking through the 16th president, a man whose racial views were, though arguably progressive for their time, far from egalitarian or inclusive. Daniel Day-Lewis looks and by all accounts sounds the part, but the cheesy script leaves much to be desired. The historically-fascinating character of Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) is mostly wasted on laugh lines, as are side characters like James Spader's Bilbo. On the plus side, it is always nice to see Hal Holbrook, and David Strathairn shines as a grave-faced William Seward of "Seward's Folly" fame.