Since it appears we’re not getting any of Terrence Malick‘s three movies he’s got cooking any time soon, we suppose this one will have to do. And to be fair he did produce this, and while longtime collaborator A.J. Edwards gets the writer/director credit on "The Better Angels," it so closely apes his mentor’s style, it might as well be another Malick movie.
A look at the boyhood life of Abraham Lincoln, newcomer Braydon Denney plays Abe in this movie that looks to show the forces around the young man that shaped who he became. Brit Marling, Jason Clarke, Diane Kruger and Wes Bentley are the more familiar faces and names that round the cast, but the movie is one that didn’t work for us. Our review out of Sundance called it, "unimaginative, uninvolving and derivative." And certainly, if you wanted to see a close approximation of a Malick film, this trailer comes pretty damn close.
"The Better Angels" opens on November 7th.