Lincoln – review  5 / 5 stars Steven Spielberg has crafted a
literate, heartfelt film about Abraham Lincoln's second term in
office and his battle to end slavery, with a masterful central
performance  Abraham Lincoln's second term, with its momentous
choices, has been brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg as a
fascinatingly theatrical contest of rhetoric and strategy. It
is a nest of high politics for the white ruling class, far from
the brutality and chaos of the battlefield. At its centre is a
gaunt Shakespearian figure, somewhere between Caesar
and Prospero.  Spielberg has made a moving and honourably high-
minded film about this world-changing moment of American
history, his best for many years: I can't imagine anyone not
wanting to see it, and to experience the pleasures of something
acted with such intelligence and depth. There is admittedly
sometimes a hint of hokum; how you react to the film may depend
on how you take the opening sequence in which Lincoln, seated
like the famous statue but with an