Lions for Lambs (2007)

Compact, enthralling piece that delves into war from political, academic, media and military (as well as personal) perspectives. A lot for 1.5 hours! Refford's best directorial effort since his Oscar-winning Ordinary People. So many things revealed in this treatment, things often not mentioned in public. After viewing the movie we have a better idea why. (But unfortunately no mention of the military/industrial conglomerates that profit from conflicts.) As usual Streep is fascinating to watch but not so Redford's character who comes across as too smug. (viewed 1/17)

This was slow, (slow) burning character study with tons of thought provoking dialogue from an A-list cast. So based on the attached cast and an intriguing story I went in expecting a pretty great movie however this ended up being a struggle to get through. Sure the acting is fantastic, how could it not be with Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise but the movie just sort of waffles through the great story premise with tons of talky-talk and ultimately goes nowhere.It follows two determined students at a West Coast University, Arian and Ernest who take inspiration from their professor and decide to do something important with their lives. The two make the rash decision to join the battle in Afghanistan and this sets off a sequence of events involving a congressman, a journalist and the professor.Unfortunately even the action filled Army rangers/college students story arc got pretty cheesy. And then to top it all off, after sitting through 90 minutes of debate, the movie just ends! What, that's it? where's the resolution? What answer does disillusioned college boy give Dr. Mallory?Frustrating both in execution and storyline because I wanted to like this and these events are really happening. 04.13

Released in 2007, I had the good fortune of watching this at the behest of a friend who is a Redford fan. It is a movie that I would buy on DVD and here is why. It is somewhat prophetic to what now exists seven years later. In 2007, this would NOT have made it popular to watch. After all, it dared to criticize the use of the press for good propaganda and the use of our universities to recruit to causes instead of resolving the real problems in the 'political science', aka political manipulation, of the real promises of democracy. Some critics found the dialogue overwhelming. In 2007, especially in America and its allied nations like Canada, it would be. After all, it dares to challenge three things that we fail to deal with, still today: the arrogance of the American, and all western, politicians, that it is only they who know how to solve the problems of the world; the incompetence of our modern 'journalists' in really knowing and fulfilling their moral and legal duty in our democracies, to expose the truth, instead breaking our daily news down into sound or picture bytes that only satisfy their personal economies; BUT, and most importantly, the blatant incompetence of even 'educated' citizens to recognize that 'democracy' is NOT the right to 'get smart enough' so that the system can be manipulated to make the individual comfortable. Indeed, the final frames of that picture (where the student, whom Redford's university professor character is trying to reawaken to his potential role in real democracy, sits in front of a television screen watching Afghanistan war news roll by as the greater escape of shallow entertainment is surfed) should meld the message for all watchers. At least, this film should awaken the conscience of those who have not fallen into the shallow belief that, as long as they are properly entertained, clothed and fed, it matters not what happens to others, even if it is just down the block. No. In 2007, this movie would not have grossed millions at the box office because it dared to challenge, in an honest and relatively nonjudgmental way, our personal roles in all of the injustice that remains in our world. Yes, even into Afghanistan in 2014 and the Ukraine and Venezuela in the same March days that I watched this prophetic and compelling movie. That is to say, the movie is compelling to those who dare to follow the dialogue and the deeper, insidious messages that became too radically exposed by 2014. Oh, Tom Cruise may not have given the performance of his life, thereby detracting from Meryl Streep and Robert Redford's and others performances in this movie. But, he should be applauded for daring to undertake this movie and for Redford daring to produce a movie that will never gross the millions of other blockbusters that elevate blood and gore to the epitome of entertainment, no matter what is happening in the real world around us. Yes, I will be recommending this movie in footnotes to my book in progress because I dare to write that it is our individual incompetence to our individual duty as responsible citizens that really leads to the decline of the potential of democracy. Instead of applying the messages in this movie, we continue to make 'democracy' a modern farce. This movie simply becomes record that this was a debate raised in America nearly a decade ago. If that is not a measure of the movie's relevance today, I do not know what is. Don MacAlpine, Saskatchewan, Canada

When this movie came out, it was panned by the right as being "too anti-Bush" and anti-war. Well, what could we expect from Hollywood other than that? Now, 7 years later, the story line seems eerily prophetic. Senator Irving (Cruise), responding to the journalist's (Streep) question "Why not just pull out?", says (paraphrasing here), "One, Iraq goes back to being a third world country in ruins, two, Iran will have nuclear capability, and three, Afghanistan will continue to be the crap-hole it is, with a strengthened Taliban as a result." Funny, this is exactly what Barack Obama has accomplished. His pulling out of Iraq has destroyed what was a budding democracy, his weakness in dealing with Iran has them on the verge of having a bomb, and his pending promised pull-out from Afghanistan will have made 10 years of war there all for nothing, at the cost of an indeterminable amount of "blood and treasure". And hundreds of young men and women walking around on aluminum "legs", trying to make do with plastic arms, or dead.... or worse. And yes, Virginia, the Taliban (and al-qaeda) are indeed strengthened, despite the Obama claim that they were "decimated". All told, a good movie. Great performances by Cruise (very believable as the either idealistic or phony (depending on your political point of view) "rising star" senator, Redford as your typical overpaid anti-war ideologue, and Streep as the reporter who thinks it's more important to report the news as she sees it as opposed to simply reporting the news. A great "message" movie, whether you take it from the point of view of the right or the left.