There's not too much to say about Lions For Lambs, (the most overtly political of all of the Iraq-War themed films this year) because there isn't too much there. Three separate stories happen more or less at once (well...that's the way it's presented...doing some math will reveal otherwise) and what we have is a three way talkathon, where each thread of the story is only loosely tied to the others. The acting from Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise (playing a journalist and a Republican congressman respectively) is surprisingly good given the smack-you-over-the-head-with-the-message, but the film as a whole is just so....well...talky. Not that talky is a bad thing (it worked marvelously for 2006's "Conversations with other Women") but when the dialogue is soooooooo painfully obvious...well..that hurts things...a lot. Also sinking the film are missteps that are either lazy, or condescending. The lazy comes from the Robert Redford/Andrew Garfield story about a college professor trying to get a bright student reingaged in the world around him. When it first starts, the oh so informative subtitles tell us we are now at "A California university..." Oh come on, just pick a damn college in California, trust me no one's going to get twisted out of shape over it. The condescending shows up in the second half of the location subtitles where it lists the time (which is fine) but then takes up space informing us that *GASP* Washington DC is on Eastern Standard Time, and California is on Pacific Standard Time. Thanks Robert Redford, but if I'm paying to see a heavy handed film about politics you can sure as hell bet that I know about our nations time zones. Similar to Beowulf, this review will be divided into 3 sections, one for each thread of the story, even though they happen simultaneously .
1. Washington - Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep: pretty solid thanks to the surprisingly good chemistry between Streep and Cruise and the in your face political statements being made aren't as bad because of said chemistry.
2. A California university (yuck) - annoying as hell. This segment blatantly spells out the message of the movie (our nation is filled with 'lions'-good people- but led by lambs...basically idiots). We also get one too many close ups of Redford's face, which has aged in a way so as to make it harsh on the eyes. We also get to hear him tell his apathetic student "Rome is burning son!"
3. Afghanistan - probably the best segment. Two soldiers (and former students of Redford's character) get thrown out of a helicopter that gets attacked. You can almost start to sympathize with these men who get stranded on a snowy plateau with enemy combatants gradually approaching. This is the least political of all the segments, and it almost works thanks to a great final five minutes or so, but the other heavy handed segments of the film drag everything else down.
Summary: with the scope so narrow, and the themes/statements so obvious, Lions For Lambs is almost like an over the top, politically charged play; It's stagey, talky, heavy handed, and hugely biased. Instead of using the war as a part of a great story (ex: In the Valley of Elah) the film is nothing more than a series of lectures and heavy metaphors, all in one small minded stagey package.
Grade: C-/D+
Nominations: NONE
2007 Releases seen: 41
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