“On the evening of April 13, 1865, John Wilkes Booth initiates his plan not only to kill Abraham Lincoln, but to decapitate the government of the Unites States. A civil war that has lasted four years is drawing to an end. While Washington City celebrates the surrender of Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army, Booth and his co-conspirators plot a carefully coordinated triple murder.”

While everyone knows of John Wilkes Booth and what he did, most people don’t really know the details of the events surrounding his assassination of the 16th president of the United States. Killing Lincoln is based on Bill O’Reilly’s New York Times best seller of the same name, and tells this story in a thrillingly dramatic way that is also as historically accurate as possible.

While most docu-dramas feature short recreations with talking head historians explaining the events, Killing Lincoln takes a different approach, and succeeds both as a theatrical telling of the story as well as a historical documentary. Tom Hanks (who happens to be a direct descendant of Lincoln through Lincoln’s mother, Nancy Hanks) provides the historical interludes between the dramatic recreations. The dramatic scenes are meticulously done, down to the tiniest of details that a majority of the audience won’t even notice. The creators have even ensured that conversions and events that take place in the film have be corroborated between three separate accounts. And areas where things were unclear are clearly stated in the information provided by Hanks.

Killing Lincoln explores the life of John Wilkes Booth (Jesse Johnson), a Southern zealot who believes his actions are in the best interest for the United States and particuarly the South. It was interesting to see another side to this man who is often just portrayed as this one dimensional mad man. The film looks at his motives and growing resentment of Abraham Lincoln (Billy Campbell), and how his plot to kidnap the president, vice president and secretary of state turned to assassination instead. It was fascinating to see how many times Booth had access to the president and could have carried his plan out sooner. Even though I ultimately knew what was going to happen, I still found those final events to be thrilling, and I was on the edge of my seat watching them play out. I also enjoyed how the film not only covered the events leading up to Lincoln’s assassination and the event itself, but also the aftermath as that is usually ignored.

The performances in Killing Lincoln were really great. Billy Campbell certainly looks like our 16th president, and Jesse Johnson really brings a humanness to the role of Booth, who so often is just portrayed as this cardboard villain. The sets and recreations look amazing, even down to the tiniest of details that might only appear on screen for a half a second.

If I had one complaint about the film itself, it would be that it was easy to tell where the commercial breaks must have been when the film originally aired on the National Geographic Channel. Throughout the film, the dramatic events would break and Tom Hanks would say something like “Abraham Lincoln only has 14 days/hours to live”—this got a bit jarring and repetitive after a while.

The picture quality on this blu-ray was fantastic—the 1860s never looked so pristine and clear! The sound, on the other hand, left something to be desired. At times, there was a thrilling soundtrack in the background that made great use of the left, right and surround channels, but the result was that the center channel which is used for most of the dialogue was overly-loud to compensate. The Blu-ray’s collection of behind-the-scenes bonus features provides a nice insight into the making of the film and the lengths the creators went to in order to ensure historical accuracy.

Overall, I really enjoyed Killing Lincoln. It takes the historical docudrama to the next level by providing a dramatization of one of the biggest events in US history that is both fully entertaining and highly historically accurate.

What’s Included:

Film (96 min) :

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
• English SDH, Spanish, French subtitles

Digital Copy: (Redemption Deadline 6/11/2015)

• UltraViolet DigitalHD Copy redeemable via Vudu or Flixster

Extras:

• Audio Commentary Featuring Executive Producer And Screenwriter Erik Jendresen (1:36:01)
  Jendresen provides an interesting commentary, discussing how they tried to portray things as accurately as possible. He points out some of the tiny details that may not be evident while watching.
• An Interview With Co-Author Bill O’Reilly (5:04)
  Bill O’Reilly talks about why he wrote “Killing Lincoln”, and some of the interesting facts he uncovered during his research.
• Uncovering The Truth: The Making Of Killing Lincoln (22:22)
  In this behind-the-scenes featurette, the cast and crew talk about the extent they went to to ensure this telling was as historically accurate as possible. Features footage from the set and interviews with executive producer Ridley Scott, actors Jesse Johnson, Billy Campbell and Geraldine Hughes, director Adrian Moat, executive producer/screenwriter Erik Jendresen, costume designer Amy Andrews Harrell, make-up designer Ashley Fetterman, property master Mark Hughes, production designer Richard Blankenship, and stunt coordinator Kid Richmond.
• Lincoln in Virginia (:17)
  Virginia tourism promo
• Promotional Features (10:26)
  A collection of behind-the-scenes featurettes featuring interviews with the cast and creators. Play All or select from Becoming Booth, Becoming Lincoln, Playing Mary Todd, Directing A New Lincoln Story, Killing Lincoln Preview.
• Sneak Peek (10:22)
  Trailers for Hitchcock, Stoker, A Late Quartet, The Last Ride and Homeland Season 1. Includes Play All option.

Final Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this dramatization of the events surrounding Lincoln’s assassination. The acting was great, the recreations beautiful, and the story itself interesting and informative. The Blu-ray picture quality was near-perfect and the supplements provide a good look into the way the film was made. Killing Lincoln is definitely worth checking out.