http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2012/11/16/lincoln-a-review/
It took a Seinfeld episode to clear the air and allow people to confess that “The English Patient” was basically a bore. Seinfeld is no longer live but truth demands that someone speak up and remark how overly long and somewhat dull Stephen Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is. Yes, it has the sainted Daniel Day Lewis, overly made up so that his natural genius for characterization is compromised by too much goop forming too many wrinkles and too much facial slack. It has the feisty Sally Field, playing Mary Todd Lincoln with the same brio she brought to Norma Rae and the same weltschmerz she brought to the matriarch in Brothers & Sisters. Even if the discrepancy in Abe and Mary’s height is historically accurate, it’s too distracting in scenes they play together, probably accounting for why she’s prostrate on the floor in one crucial scene and sitting next to him in a horse drawn carriage in another. Too much of the movie looks like painterly tableaux of various events instead of scenes where characters interact dramatically with each other. Spielberg pays attention to landscape, interiors, lighting and the inclusion of representatives of every class; he’s careful to have black people be well-spoken, well-dressed, literate and kind. Lincoln himself is played in a very understated, folksy manner with little range in the performance except for a marital fight with his wife and a final outburst with his inner circle as he pounds on the table, insisting on the importance of passing the 13th amendment. It’s hard to create a historical epic with the star acting in a very low register
