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Rating:  -
I had been looking forward to seeing this movie but somehow missed it in theaters. When I saw it at my nearest Red Box I rented it. It is truly bad, and preachy like almost nothing else. For most of the movie, I didn't understand Redford's professor character and the scenes in Afghanistan [what you can see of them] are student-movie quality. Tom Cruise, basing his smile intensive 'performance' on John Edwards, is completely unbelievable. Meryl Streep, being the pro that she is, tries to bring some intensity to an unplayable character, but only in the single scene with her editor does the movie come to life.
There are numerous continuity gaffes, and how does Tom Cruise's Senator Irving, who claims that he graduated at the top of his class from West Point, have a diploma from Harvard? Three of us watched this together. When the movie ended, we collectively yelled, 'That's it?' Much ado about not much. See 'Stop-Loss' if you want to see a good movie about the war[s] and the political machinations that contribute to their being waged in the first place as well as their longevity.
Rating: -
"Lions for Lambs" joins a raft of recent movies exploring the fallout over the war with Iraq. The subject matter is timely, and this movie has a few interesting things to say about the war and how Americans view politics. Unfortunately, the movie is so poorly directed and the characters so stock that it ends up failing to make the intended impact. The all-star cast includes Tom Cruise as a smug young Republican Senator, Meryl Streep as a smug liberal-leaning reporter, Robert Redford as a smug big-thinking Professor, and newcomer British actor Andrew Garfield as a smug, lazy liberal arts student. Well you get the point. The characters could hardly be more caricature-like, which greatly waters down the message of the movie.
Message movies can be powerful in advancing political and sociological ideas, as witnessed by recent successes such as "Crash" and "Babel." Unfortunately, whatever substance "Lions for Lambs" has is lost in its overly talky, didactic script. The movie really consists of three intermixed scenes. Tom Cruise's character gives an exclusive military scoop to Meryl Streep, who plays the most argumentative reporter in history. After 5 minutes of arguing with her, a real Senator would show her to the door. In the second scene, Robert Redford's professor tries to motivate one of his slacker students to really, really care. These two conversations comprise the bulk of the movie along with what seems at first to be unrelated scenes of a military strike in the Middle East. Gradually, the dots are connected to explain the relevance of the military section of the plot. This part of the movie is genuinely affecting at time, helped greatly by solid acting by Michael Pena (Crash, Babel) and Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher). Indeed, this section of the movie should have been expanded; instead, it became the epitome of liberal guilt, sadly undercutting its ultimate effectiveness.
"Lions for Lambs" is not a terrible movie. It speeds along quickly and is relatively watchable. However, what it aims for and what it attains are so disparate as to detract greatly, depending on the individual viewer, from what good things one may take from the movie. Plus, Redford really doesn't aim high enough for the film to take the title of "noble failure." Excoriating Republicans for being hawkish and taking the press for task for buying into hype aren't exactly going to win you any prizes for originality.
Rating:  -
"Useful new things to be said about the debacle in Iraq are in very short supply. I'm not sure that's what "Lions for Lambs" intends to demonstrate, but it does, exhaustingly. Essentially, if I have this right, we should never have invaded Iraq, but now that we're there, (1) we can't very well leave, and (2) we can't very well stay, so (3) the answer is, stay while in the process of leaving." Roger Ebert
'All The Right Moves', and 'All The Right Words': apathy and cynicism, self interest is to have the best life you can have the easiest way, risk , bravery, say what you mean and mean what you say, don't live over a safety net, well reasoned arguments and journalist integrity, making the right choices or don't make any at all, and people who have the least to give, give the most. We have all heard these words and phrases time and again, and in this film we hear them in spades. Aha, I gave my own!
Robert Redford started out with a smart script. He was able to recruit the best of the best, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and himself. The time seemed ripe, we have a far off war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have an administration who fooled us all, we have the media who went along with the administration, and we have the American Public full of apathy all. What's not to like? Somewhere, something went wrong in this film. The public was not prepared for 94 minutes of moralizing and facing the music so to speak. We would prefer to move on with our lives, taking the easy way out, why not? What the film forgot was that we pay to be entertained, this was not entertainment, this was a lecture and we didn't want any of it. Too bad.
"Lions for Lambs is so square it's like something out of the gray twilight glow of the golden age of television. Even the military plot, which clunks, seems to be taking place on stage. Yet Carnahan's writing ignites familiar issues with vigor and snap; there's audacity in its attempt to seize us with nothing but a war of rhetoric. Maybe Lions for Lambs wouldn't seem like such a folly in a movie culture that risked making more follies like it." Owen Glieberman
A film that speaks to us all, but all of us don't want to hear.
Recommended. prisrob 05-14-08
The Electric Horseman
The French Lieutenant's Woman
A Few Good Men (Special Edition)
Rating:  -
You know those movies that you watch, and find so compelling you say to people `you HAVE to see this movie...'? Well, this movie aims for that, but alas merely reaches the heights of `Yeah, it's worth watching...'.
The film revolves around 3 storylines, essentially taking place simultaneously, and in real time, but this structure is not religiously adhered to as there are also some flashbacks. In Washington, a senior Senator rumored to be a potential Presidential candidate, invites a respected journalist from a major TV news network, to give her an exclusive on the latest tactics being used in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, that push is shown through the eyes of two soldiers in the Special Forces, as the mission goes wrong and they are stuck behind enemy lines. The final strand is in a University, as the professor Robert Redford talks to a student full of potential but with more than enough cynicism and apathy to go with it. He shares his experience with the story of the two Special Forces soldiers, who were students of his and left to `go make a difference'.
It's a movie brimming with talent to be sure, with Robert Redford directing and Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep acting their socks off.. Cruise does give a compellingly convincing portrayal of a senior politician, convinced of his moral high ground but using it to further his career as much or if not more than doing the right thing. Streep also gives a performance which at times seems just a little too self consciously rounded, when something stripped down to basics would have done just as well. Her tics and mannerisms would have been better served in a movie which focused on her character. Redford is.. well, simply Redford.
The script, when we hear the characters debating with each other (which is most of the movie - don't go expecting an action flick whatever you do..) is intelligent and gets across its message clearly enough. Engagement is needed - apathy is a recipe for disaster, whether it be apathy on an individuals part or on the part of the media. Clumsy parallels to Vietnam are made. However, we don't have time to warm to any of the characters, neither are arcs to the characters developed, such that the movie ultimately feels like a lecture - something that a documentary could have done as well - or even better, using actual facts instead of drama.
Worth watching for some good performances and literate script, but should have been much more. How did such interesting talent combine to make such a mediocre product - is making a statement on war so much at odds with good film-making these days?
Rating:  -
This movie is so very preachy and predictable, and pretentious and many other word that may or may not start with p. The same ideas are said over and over, and they are ideas said in our society over and over and better by others. As an action movie it falls really short, as political drama it falls short, as a story of inspiration way short and silly too...and it's like one big lecture by Redford and Streep and Cruise being the mouthpiece for conservative politics.
Really, whatever.
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