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film is the Cruise vs. Streep argument. Both actors are wonderful in their roles. This is the kind of role Cruise is best at – the aggressive talker who only thinks in absolutes – and even though he ultimately must be painted as power-hungry and careless of good American lives, he’s able to achieve a remarkable counter attack to Streep’s skepticism about his new Afghanistan plan. He points out that the network she works for helped sell the Iraq War in the first place, and that she, thanks to a Time magazine cover story, is fully complicit in his own success as a senator.
He also gives one of the film’s funniest and most pointed lines for anyone who watches 24-hour news channel anchors.
Unfortunately, all this film is really doing is pandering to public opinion. If some form of Lions for Lambs had come out before everybody generally agreed the Iraq War was a bad idea, when most of the country was still on Bush’s side, it would’ve at least shown some guts. (It would’ve been pounced on from all quarters for being out-of-touch and radically leftist, but that’ll happen anyway.) As it stands now, it’s essentially presenting an argument that’s already been won.
And yet I’m torn, because its intentions are admirable, and some of its messages are worth repeating, such as its warning against apathy and its reminder that ultimately, politicians’ main concerns are not with the troops or even their own party, but with themselves. (Cruise’s last line illustrates this, in a perfect payoff.)
Then there’s the more superficial level: it’s a slickly made film with entertaining performances. I enjoyed myself. Ultimately, and ironically, it becomes exactly the opposite of what Redford was trying to make: disposable entertainment.
Movie Grade: B-
Synopsis:
Lions for Lambs consists of three interconnected storylines: Tom Cruise as a congressman who interacts with a journalist (Meryl Streep); Robert Redford as an idealistic professor who attempts to inspire a privileged student in his class; and a third storyline about a pair of American soldiers wounded in enemy territory, one of whom is Redford's former student. |
