Like Born on the Fourth of July or Platoon, “Lions for Lambs” had the potential to be a great story-telling adventure with timely political commentary. It even had an ensemble cast of A-list veterans.
But like the very war and zeitgeist it attempts to critique, it too fails to execute as planned — the writers could simply never figure out which direction it should go. So they dug a foxhole and filled it with windbags.
Robert Redford’s performance amounts to little more than a pro bono PSA for bureaucratic “feel-good” chicanery in the form of executive-level community-service corps.
He spends no less than ten minutes extolling the virtues of volunteering for the state or “doing something,” a feat only surpassed by Bush’s own shenanigans during the 2002 State-of-the-Union (see: USA Freedom Corps).
For instance, Redford’s character(?) attempts to motivate a cynical student by giving him a half-baked project conjured up by previous starry-eyed pupils. In their ne’erdowellery, every American would be required to participate in one of three government organs: join the Peacecorp, join the Americorp, or enlist in the military. Thus fulfilling Kennedy’s statolatry: what can you do for the state?
Tom Cruise plays himself (with a faux title of senator) and uses dialogue seemingly written by Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Karl Rove. His spin-doctoring abilities, verbal maneuvering, and sound-bites are bar-none.
While Meryl Streep’s character raised numerous objections to the senatorial demagogue, her timidity reeks of a Colmes-esque punching bag. A mostly meek, spineless reporter that only hints at the thesis detailed in “War Made Easy.”
Cinematically, I couldn’t figure out who I was supposed to hate, love or what popular cause to loath, therefore I’d give it a 1.5 out of 4.
Not only was the dialogue tiring but the acting was unrealistic (especially in the flashback scenes in the college classroom). Overall, it felt more like the straight-to-DVD release of Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil than a chemically developed drama such as Letters from Iwo Jima.
My daughter who is the entertainment editor of her High School newspaper reviewed this film in more or less the same vein. Its interesting to see the opinion of a 17-year old.
Click here: http://cypressbaycircuit.com/pdfs/novemeber%20issue/page23.pdf
Stanley, that was an excellent review — not only was it well-worded, but the analysis is dead on.
As your daughter said, the roles were cliche; and I was hoping that it would all synthesize somehow at the end… which was about as fruitful as the Annapolis Accords.
Thank you Tim
I’d highly recomend “Homecoming” from cinemax’s Masters of Horror series. It has iraq veterens turning into zombies so they can come back and vote against Bush. There is an ann coulter character that is really dead on. and GOP party hacks trying to spin the zombie return as pro war
“we sold this war with horses**t and elbow grease!”
I’d highly recommend “Homecoming” from cinemaxs masters of horror series. it features iraq war veterans who come back as zombies to vote against Bush. There is an ann coulter character who is dead on. they try to spin the zombies returning as a pro war statement
Brian DePalma’s Redacted is a small masterpiece, of both medium and content.
And maybe the writers were unwilling to take Lions for Lambs in the way that they at least subconsciously knew it should go, or just plain refused to figure that out for reasons that would be very interesting, and probably helpful, to understand. Who are the writers, eh.
I did not see it. From the reviews I just assumed the plot was twisted to turn an anti-war message into a pro-war message. Some hogwash about rogue politicians sabotaging our “heroes” in the “war”.