Review by sfield-34975

Saving Lincoln (2013) is a film which I had mixed feelings about watching. Watching the trailer, I was both intrigued and puzzled with some of the directions the film took. Having just watched Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (2013) I had much lower expectations for this film. Yet, having invested my time in learning more about Lincoln over the last couple of months, I found it necessary to watch and see what the creators had in mind for this 2013 film. Suffice to say the film surpassed my expectations. Saving Lincoln tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's friend and bodyguard Marshall Ward Hill Lamon, the man who left his post at Ford's Theatre which ultimately led to Lincoln's demise. While nowhere close to Daniel Day Lewis's portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, Tom Amandes' portrayal of Lincoln incorporates much of the cleverness, compassion, humor and charm of the real-life Lincoln and does just enough to be believable. Other than Lincoln, Lea Coco's portrayal of Lincoln's friend Lamon is an interesting aspect which has never been focused on as much in past films. Aside from the acting the movie's cinematography is also an intriguing aspect of the film. The movie is filmed in a black and white background which is supposed to convey a historic feeling to the movie but is mostly hit or miss. At times the green screen look of the movie can seem cheap or cheesy, but at other times the style works surprisingly well as it shows real pictures from the civil war era which brings an interesting characteristic to the film. The films story itself incorporates a lot of historical accuracy of the era. Although the film is accurate for a lot of the movie, I did feel as though it tried too hard to list off every important event during the Civil war era of Lincoln's presidency without much depth. Overall, while the movie was better that I expected it is not a movie I would rave about to friends but it is worth a watch if you are even remotely interested in Lincoln.