Film Review: Lincoln

Steven Spielberg needed a big hit. He’s directed some decent pictures – Munich, The Terminal and Catch Me If You Can spring to mind, but he’s arguably not had a critically-acclaimed smash since 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. That’s a long time. He’s also had a couple of duds – hello War of the Worlds and Indiana Jones and the Pointless MacGuffin – so it was about time he showed us that he still has some of the old magic. By taking on Lincoln he’s tackling one of the most important periods of American history, one of their most revered political figures and the subject of racial inequality. Surely, that’s a recipe for success?

Lincoln, in some form, has been knocking around for a while (since 1999, in fact) and has undergone a fair few changes. It is adapted from a small section of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s biography of the 16th President of the United States and focuses on his efforts during January 1865 to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the House of Representatives, the Amendment that would effectively abolish slavery. Don’t go expecting any of Abe’s early life or anything regarding The Gettysburg Address; this is no biopic, but a snapshot of just a few weeks.

As you would expect of a film covering such subject matter, it is heavily political and many of the scenes are confined to within four walls and are primarily dialogue driven. Fortunately, playwright Tony Kushner (with whom Spielberg worked with on Munich) has produced a script that is detailed and thorough but also accessible, charming and full of wit. It requires you to pay attention throughout; a missed sideways glance or off-the-cuff remark can result in missing important information, but for those fully immersed in the story (and it’s very easy to be so), it’s incredibly rewarding. Some knowledge of the history of the time and of the American judicial system, however, would be beneficial. Although it the film never excludes those without such knowledge, those that do may get a little more out of it.

Throughout the film, we see Abe in his many guises: family man, raconteur, politician, all of which are as intriguing and beguiling as the next, and much of the credit for that must go to Daniel Day-Lewis. The role of Abraham Lincoln originally belonged to Liam Neeson, but when he pulled out Day-Lewis stepped in to fill his beard. Day-Lewis plays Lincoln with a weariness you would expect of someone in his mid-fifties running the most powerful country in the world, his lanky frame and sunken shoulders heavy with countless burdens, both personal and political. From the opening titles, through the inevitable climax to the rather unnecessary denouement, Day-Lewis gives a masterful portrayal of Honest Abe, and without it the film would simply not be as effective as it is.

An equally impressive performance is that of Tommy Lee Jones as Radical Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, although the overacting Sally Fields and the tacked on Joseph Gordon-Levitt are a little light on character development.

Lincoln is Spielberg at his restrained best. Flanked by impressive cinematography (courtesy of DP Janusz Kaminsky) and a tight script (aside from the odd moment that descends a little too much into slapstick), Spielberg has put together a more personable film that it could otherwise have been and one that should ensure he remains one of Hollywood’s top properties.

4.5/5 pigeons

Film Review: Looper

“This time travel crap, just fries your brain like a egg…”

This is a line uttered by one of the characters in Looper and pretty much sums up the problem with time travel films. They don’t make a huge amount of sense and the more you think about them, the less sense they make. Looper suffers from the same problem, but if you can just sit back and take the film at face value without trying to analyse it to within an inch of its life, then there’s a decent sci-fi action film with an intriguing premise.

Thirty years in the future, time travel has been invented and immediately outlawed. However, it’s still used by the criminal underworld to dispose of targets who are sent back and killed by hired hitmen or Loopers. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper who breaks the most important rule – don’t let your target get away. Joe’s predicament is made all the more complicated when he discovers that the person sent back for him to kill is actually his future self. Old Joe (Bruce Willis) has engineered the time travel himself in order to kill a child who will grow up to be an organised crime leader known as The Rainmaker who caused the death of his wife. When young Joe becomes emotionally involved with the child’s mother (Emily Blunt), he has some tough decisions to make about whether to protect his own future or that of an innocent child.

Looper does an excellent job of creating a believable universe that’s not too removed from the one we live in, but removed enough to have a unique futuristic vibe. It looks superb throughout; writer and director Rian Johnson has done an excellent job of realising  However, the time it takes to establish this universe is at the expense of the narrative, particularly in the film’s first third. There is a lot of playing around with the time travel and the subject of Loopers that never really goes anywhere and feels little more than a showcase of the films central ideas, albeit it in a fun and fast-paced way. It’s not for quite a while that old Joe actually shows up and the narrative gets some driving force.

Oddly, when the narrative starts to move forward, the pace of the film actually slows and we’re invited to invest more in the characters than the overall plot. This is particularly the case once we meet Emily Blunt’s character, Sara, and her son Cid who old Joe believes will grow up to become The Rainmaker. In fact, it’s Sara and Cid who actually offer the most emotional involvement in the film. Both young and old Joe aren’t particularly identifiable characters and their fate becomes rather less interesting than that of the young boy. Old Joe, especially, is a rather forgettable character, only really given gravitas by the presence of Bruce Willis.

About two thirds into the film, something strange happens. It sheds some of its sci-fi leanings and adopts a horror element that brings it closer to films such as Children of the Corn. This takes it in a direction different to that painted by what’s occurred previously, which may not be to everyone’s tastes. At times it feels like the film is having some kind of identity crisis, unsure of what it wants to be, although it manages to keep on track just enough to maintain overall focus.

Some have said that Looper is ‘the new Matrix’ but those claims are a little misguided. It doesn’t have the originality of the Wachowski’s 1999 mindbender but is still a worthy addition to the sc-fi genre, more akin to the likes of Twelve Monkeys, although again, not quite up to those standards. Yes there are plot holes if you go looking for them and plenty to debate but if you enjoy the film for what it is and put the urge to pick it to pieces to one side, then it’s a movie with plenty of merit even if it fails to be the classic many predicted it would be.

Chris