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"Lincoln" is an extraordinary film about the final great struggle of an extraordinary man, and I found Daniel Day Lewis's performance in the title role both moving and exhilarating.Perhaps wisely, the makers of the film did not attempt to cover the whole breadth of Abraham Lincoln's life in a single film, and instead focussed on the last few months of his life, and the historic struggle to complete the abolition of slavery in the USA which dominated those few months.As the film opens the American Civil war is within sight of its' conclusion. Lincoln has been re-elected and the Confederate States have for all practical purposes been defeated. To bring peace to America the remaining task is to mop up what is left of the CSA or bring them to the negotiating table.However there remains one other major task: to secure passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which at the start of the film has passed the Senate but not the House of Representatives.Lincoln, much of his party, and most of the Union wanted peace and an end to the war, but to get the abolition of slavery into the constitution Lincoln had to get it through the US House of Representatives by a two thirds majority before the end of the war. When the south laid down their arms, and representatives of the "slave states" were back in Congress, they and the Democrat representatives from the North, would have had the necessary votes to prevent the abolition of slavery.One of the things you have to understand to follow this story is that the American political parties effectively changed places in the century which followed the events of "Lincoln". Having won victory in the civil war the party which up to that point had been the progressive reformers became the establishment. The reactionary party which lost reinvented itself as the friend of the dispossessed and became a left wing party.For a British person to understand this, imagine that Tony Blair had continued gradually taking the Labour party further and further to the right, and that the Conservatives eventually decided that instead of opposing Labour from the right they were going to reinvent themselves as a socialist party and oppose Labour from the left. Now imagine that something like this this had happened 150 years ago and the relative political positions of the two main parties as we experience them today is exactly opposite to what it had once been. That is essentially what happened in America in the decades following the time this film depicts.E.g. the Democrats have now become largely the party of the American left and Lincoln's reformist party, the Republicans, became largely the party of the right, and that is how we think of them today. But in 1864-5 at the time of this film they were the other way round, with Republicans as the progressive reformers who supported a more equal society and an end to slavery and Democrats opposing this.If you were to compare the views held by the US Republican party in 1864 with those of Republicans today, you'd find although by today's standards modern Republicans are to the right of centre, in 1864 the moderate Republicans were slightly left of centre and the radical Republicans, though their idea of society would not be radical today, were equivalent to the hard left by the standards of their contemporaries.By contrast while most Democrats today are on the left, the Democrats of 1864 were the most fossilised of ultra-reactionary dinosaurs, people on the right even by the standards of their own century and who would make the present-day Tea Party look like Marxists. "Lincoln" does not go out of its' way to emphasise this but it doesn't shy away from depicting it either.Much of the film is about the high-wire balancing act which Lincoln had to pursue, trying to bring the war to an end but not too fast, holding the radical and moderate wings of his own party together while persuading enough Democrats to vote with them, balancing peace and reform. The film poses some unanswerable questions about whether and when the ends justify the means.In Britain and many other countries when someone wins or loses an election they take or lose office almost immediately but the US constitution does not work like that. There is a period of some months after an election when those who won seats have not yet taken office and those voted out have not yet left it. The period depicted in this film, and the political struggle it displays, took place during one of those "lame duck" periods between an election and the installation of the new congressmen. One of the tactics the Lincoln administration is shown using was to induce defeated Democrats who had lost their seats and would shortly be unemployed, but were still members of the House of Representatives for a few more weeks, to change their vote in exchange for the promise of a new job after they ceased to be congressmen.This is far from the only example of cynical political tactics deployed by both sides within the film. One of the best performances in the film is given by Tommy Lee Jones as the radical Republican congressman Thaddeus Stevens, who had sometimes been a thorn in Lincoln's side but, unlike some of his radical colleagues, has the sense to see that the only way to free the slaves is to help Lincoln get the 13th amendment through.There is a very powerful scene where Democrat congressmen try desperately to goad Stevens into admitting that the 13th Amendment is the stepping stone to all sorts of ultra radical ideas like - horror of horrors - equality for black people. Realising that such an admission would kill the amendment's chances of getting through, Stevens refuses to give them what they want and sticks doggedly to a carefully considered answer which obviously falls well short of what he would like to say without quite being an obvious lie. Analogies between politics and cricket are often risky, but this section of the film is the rhetorical equivalent of a batsman giving a masterclass in deflecting a lethal bowling attack.Besides Daniel Day Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones, other great performances in this film come from James Spader as one of the fixers the administration employs to garner votes, Sally Field as Lincoln's wife and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his son. Jared Harris gets a cameo as Ulysses S Grant.I strongly recommend this film.

Excellent movie with dense script and superb acting, staging and direction

Have just come back from a tour of the Southern States in America. Knew nothing about the Civil War, so now I knew a little bit, thought it was time to watch Lincoln. Very informative.

I felt that some sections were a little overlong..the Parliament particularly..

In 1863, two years into the American Civil War, President Abraham 'Abe' Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation under his presidential authority as commander in chief of the armed forces. It affected those states (the Confederates) still rebelling against the North (the Union). Many of those emancipated slaves joined the Union army. In early 1865, while the civil war still continued, Lincoln determines to push through a 13th amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery once and for all. He is also in a position to negotiate the end of the four year war which would spare the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, of fighting soldiers. However, his dilemma is that if the war should end before the amendment is passed then the abolition of slavery and the misery that slavery causes might not happen any time soon. His only solution is to persuade enough politicians to see his point of view and vote for the 13th amendment.Some have said that Lincoln (2012) was too long but, for me, it wasn't long enough. I could happily sit through hours of clever debate, amusing repartee, and listen to Lincoln's anecdotal stories which were supposed to serve as some kind of moral relating to the subject at hand. The cast was particularly impressive and I could not imagine anyone better than Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead except, perhaps, the late Gregory Peck. Tommy Lee Jones seemed a little misplaced as an elderly politician sporting a ludicrous wig but that's because my mind has him typecast as a United States Marshal. It's going to take some time for me to shake off that younger image.While bad language is limited in Lincoln (2012), there are some scenes of violence and rather graphic scenes of the horrors and casualties of war. They do serve a purpose, to emphasise the dilemma facing Lincoln - end the war and risk slavery continuing - and I suppose without them the movie might have seemed a little superficial.All in all Lincoln adds up to a fine 150 minute movie and certainly worth a second look. I was glad to have watched it on a Blu-ray, the quality of video and sound making great viewing.As many of us already know, Abraham Lincoln came rather late in discovering that no good deed goes unpunished.VJ - Movies and Books World