Sunday 17 March 2013

Gerry Barnaby's Film Review: Lincoln

Genre: Biography Drama History, contain war scenes & strong racial language

Film Constance parent advised to read before watching :
Sex & Nudity:There is no suggestive nudity and no sex.Women are shown wearing low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage.In one scene, Mary is undressing for bed, showing her undergarments (which are modest compared to today's). Her bare shoulder and upper chest are shown.An unmarried man and woman lie side by side in bed under the covers, fully clothed in long nightgowns. They briefly kiss.

Violence & Gore: The film opens on a battle scene; people are stabbed with bayonets, beaten and pushed deep into the mud to drown. The sequence isn't bloody, but it vividly conveys the horrors of war. Toward the end of the war, Lincoln visits a battlefield strewn with bloody corpses. One mangled body has its torso splayed open, devoid of organs. We see a city burning.
When Lincoln visits wounded war vets, his son Robert follows orderlies pushing a cart that's dribbling blood along the way. The conveyance stops at a huge pit filled with human limbs, and the orderlies unveil the cart's contents - newly amputated legs and arms. They dump the contents in the pit as people begin to fill in the hole with dirt.
When Robert and his father get into an argument, Lincoln slaps him across the face.
Lincoln is shown on his deathbed, a bloodstained pillow beneath his head.

Profanity: One or two f-words. Four or five s-words. Derogatory terms for African-Americans several times, including the n-word. Also heard are: "b--ch", "bloody", "G--d--n" more than a dozen times. Jesus' name is misused once. There is a civil war era insult, "pettifogging", which, when used in the film, may sound like another F-word is used.

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking: Several characters are shown drinking (wine, beer and other presumably alcoholic beverages) and smoking (mostly cigars). Preston Blair's wife instructs a servant to get him drunk during a long journey so he'll be able to sleep. Lobbyists seem inebriated in a scene or two.

Frightening/Intense Scenes: A scene where Abraham Lincoln and Robert Todd Lincoln visit a few wounded soldiers could be upsetting. They all have had their legs amputated, and the stumps are well-bandaged. Another scene shows their legs being dumped into what could be described as a mass grave of amputated limbs.Although Lincoln's assassination is not shown, it is announced with his younger son, Tad, present, who then screams hysterically from grief.There is fighting between Lincoln and his wife near the end of the film. A lot of shouting at each other over their son Robbie's enlistment into the Union army.The main theme of this film is slavery and racism. Some people will likely be offended by the more racist characters, including one character who mentions women's rights, to great protest from the crowd, but of course slavery is defeated in the end and the heroes are all against it.

Cert: 12A i would say 15 cert at best due to contents.


Story: In 1865, as the American Civil War winds inexorably toward conclusion, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln endeavors to achieve passage of the landmark constitutional amendment which will forever ban slavery from the United States. However, his task is a race against time, for peace may come at any time, and if it comes before the amendment is passed, the returning southern states will stop it before it can become law. Lincoln must, by almost any means possible, obtain enough votes from a recalcitrant Congress before peace arrives and it is too late. Yet the president is torn, as an early peace would save thousands of lives. As the nation confronts its conscience over the freedom of its entire population, Lincoln faces his own crisis of conscience -- end slavery or end the war.

Likes : I tell ya watching this film it no wonder this film got an Oscar fanstically made, an almost all star cast with brilliant performance by all & the fantastic Danial day Lewis which i find one of the greatest actors around playing Lincoln was top notice.This is probably one of the best film portraying Lincolns life trying to stop a war & stop slavery for good,considering the history of the war & the era this film is set in, i see Lincoln as one of the best men in history to be the president of the USA,not only a man worthy of honor but a man who believed that all people were equal, Daniel Day-Lewis really played this role down to perfection, you could really feel the emotion & the struggle he had to face in trying to stop a war & free slavery but was fighting people hell bent on keeping slavery & thinking that all coloured people have the devil in them, typical religious racist bullshit that west Americans had in them days.This is why Lincoln was famous for freeing the slavery & stopping the war but sealed he's fate has some people didn't like the fact he had people that loved him & that he seal the 5Th amendment that all colour people were free & the war to stop, he was shot for it.sadly that legacy he left behind was short lived as america turned to it old ways & never learned from its mistakes.this film really show brilliances in film making special when you have actors like Danial Day Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones all the finest actors around in film.

Dislike: This film was brilliant made.

Overall : A good film on history,great scene & performance by all star,a worth watching film if your in to history films.

Rating: 5 out of 5 for entertainment / 10 out of 10 for concept / history.

 

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