A very good movie

As usual with Steven Spielberg, I was a little bit skeptical with this movie. I mean, would it be like 'Schindler's list' or more like 'War Horse'?. Fortunately, I must admit that it was almost as good as 'Schindler's list'. Indeed, I thought it was a fascinating historical picture but not only was it fascinating from a historical point of view, it was also a spellbinding policitical intrigue. Indeed, to see Lincoln managing to get all the necessary votes was quite something, reaching out to his opponents, blackmailing, bribing, was quite something and a great lesson in Political strategy. Of course, as usual, Daniel Day-Lewis was just amazing and the only thing that stands in his way to win the Academy Award is the fact that he has already won two of those. The other actor who also completely blew me away was Tommy Lee Jones who simply gave his best performance of his prestigious career. They were also some other decent actors like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Sally Field but I honestly didn't care much about their sub-plots. So, it was a very good flick, one of Spielberg's best, but still, there were a few things that bothered me. Indeed, even though the tone was usually really good, Spielberg couldn't help throwing some over-sentimental uplifiting music, a trademark of his. Another critic I would have is that the characterization was rather simplistic. Indeed, you had the good guys, the bad guys and on top of that, Lincoln who was some kind of half-god and I'm sure the whole thing was a little bit more complicated back then. Finally, pretty much like in 'Amistad', in my opinion, it suffers that, even though it deals with the fate of black people, the black folks just pop up in small measly roles which be might true historically speaking but, as results, they remain some faceless and helpless creatures who can't deal with their life without the help of the Great White man. Still, even though it is not a perfect feature, it is still a very good movie, the best made by Spielberg since 'Munich' and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

8/10