An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by D.W. Griffith, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I have to admit that it’s only afterwards that it discovered that it was actually one of Griffith’s last movies but, even though it was a decent watch, I’m afraid it was a rather minor effort for this master after all. I mean, the topic was super interesting and it was a pretty neat idea to make a biopic about Abraham Lincoln’s whole life, going from his birth to his untimely death by the hand of John Wilkes Booth. However, for some reason, they took less than 90 mins which seemed way too short to cover such a complex and eventful life. It is even more bewildering when you think that Griffith did deliver before some silent epics which lasted more than 3 hrs. Anyway, the whole thing felt really episodic, dashing through some bullet points covering more or less the highlights of Lincoln’s life. As a result, it was also narratively rather clunky. For example, at some point, you see him mourning Ann Rutledge who was apparently the love of his life but then, during the very next scene, he was at some ball trying to woo Mary Todd. At least, even though he played an extremely romanticized version of the famous American president, Walter Huston was actually pretty good here. There were also a couple of battle scenes which were actually quite impressive, especially if you think about the fact that this movie was made more than 90 years ago. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was not bad though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in D.W. Griffith’s work.