Lions for Lambs: Too Little About Too Much

Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs is a political drama that will bore the political science student and lecture the apathic. The movie follows the events that unfold between the hours of 10 AM and 11 AM Eastern time, as a Congressman (Tom Cruise) has an exclusive interview with a liberal reporter (Meryl Streep) on what the next step is in Afghanistan and Iraq as the plan is being implemented. The Congressman talks about how it will be a success while a helicopter is shot down and two soldiers are stranded in the mountains of Afghanistan. The two soldier are former students of a political science professor (Robert Redford) who, in the same time frame, lectures a promising, but apathic student to becoming more active. This is amid flashbacks of the two former students now fighting for their lives.

I will say three things about Iraq and three things about the movie's politics before going on. On Iraq... 1.) we went in there on false pretenses, 2.) we cannot pull out without collapsing the country into anarchy, and 3.) Saddam Huessin was an evil dictator, whether he needed to be removed or not. On the movie... 1.) it is accurate on events leading up to this point in Iraq, 2.) it is fair until the final word or moral, where the liberals find themselves by developing backbones, and 3.) it nails the issue of personal responsibility.

There are plenty of logical errors that are too easily ignored. For starters, Cruise is a Congressman with a key say in determining military action. He has a exclusive interview with a television reporter who doesn't bring any television equipment, only pen and paper. The entire announcement of a strategy plan is done through a single reporter, sold by a single congressman without any PR representatives present. If you can put that aside, their third of the story represents a debate amongst the Republican neo-cons who will not admit defeat, period, and the liberals who stayed quite during the events that lead to the ill-prepared war. No one blames the troups, maybe it was the intelligence's fault, but in the end, the public will blame the politicians for leading them here and the politicians will blame the public for letting them. While the debate is lively and very well performed, it takes too long to get to the point. Those familiar will grow tired and those that didn't pay attention to the news won't find Tom Cruise more compelling than the news.

The more interesting story is between Redford and the apathic, as Redford it is better written and reveals more character and the message of responsibility than the ideologies represented by Cruise and Streep. The problem is the same here. The action of the soldiers seems to overshadow the uneventful dialogue at the professor's office. If the intellectual arguments get your interest, the moral lecture or predictable action will make you disappointed you invested such interest.

In the end, I understood what they were going for and really rooted for a good ening, only non-presented itself. I tried to figure out a proper way to go about it, as though there is a right way to end it. Instead, I realized the movie was hopeless. It went nowhere at a full speed, and it wasn't until we stepped out we realized we didn't get anywhere.

--Red Tie Guy