Powerful

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2012)

Obviously from the start one knows that there is no happy ending to this movie, although Spielberg tastefully avoids showing the assassination leaving at the end of the movie the positive feeling of a war over and a hideous injustice corrected. Some of the secondary casting was a little suspect (notably James Spader) and it took me a while to warm to Tommy Lee Jones as Thadius Stevens but after I while I was able to put aside his Men in Black persona. Day-Lewis was convincing without overacting, altho at the very start of the movie Spielberg put him in an embarrassing set piece whereby two white soldiers started to recite the Gettysberg address and a black soldier finished it. I almost left the theatre at that early point but was glad I did not since what followed was a moving and thought provoking movie.