Lions for Lambs
Studio: MGM
Rated: R
Cast: Robert Redford, Tom Cruise
Director: Robert Redford
WorkNameSort: Lions for Lambs
Our Rating: 3.50
For a film boasting three of the biggest matinee icons of all time, Lions for Lambs is a surprisingly small film. It’s about an hour and a half long and is composed of three extended scenes intercut with each other, combining to form a talky dissertation on the War on Terror that gives neither Robert Redford, nor Meryl Streep, nor Tom Cruise time for a scene-chewing Oscar moment. They’re just players in a modest production that feels more tailored to the stage than the silver screen. Redford, who also directs, is a college professor trying to mold a bright but cynical student into a political activist in the span of one morning meeting; Cruise is the talking point–spouting GOP congressman with a major influence on the decisions of President Bush; and Streep is the television reporter whose exclusive interview with the senator yields information that could cost her her job. Meanwhile, two graduates of Redford’s poli-sci course (Derek Luke and Michael Pena), having joined the military to their professor’s chagrin, find themselves at death’s door in the fields of Afghanistan. Lions for Lambs provides a more robust debate about the wars we’re in and may soon be in (in regard to Iran, the movie feels like it was written yesterday) than you’re likely to get from any cable news show. It attacks the complacency of the media in the lead-up to Iraq and of contemporary youth in its apathy toward current affairs. But it does so in such an overt way, with the dialogue deteriorating into didactic messages and blunt symbols, that you’re left with little to ponder for yourself.
This article appears in Nov 7-13, 2007.