In the seven years that have passed since Robert Redford’s last directorial effort, a lot has happened and the critical mass of tragedies and arbitrarily sanctioned debacles has now prompted him to make his most politically involved film to date. The title Lions for Lambs is said to refer to the words of a German World War 1 general on the bravery of British soldiers and the idiocy of their commanders. It seems that Redford feels the same way about the current US political leadership, which, according to him, is doggedly trying to save face at the mounting cost of the lives of its own soldiers. The film generally points a finger at the politicians for doing the latter and at everyone else for allowing them to. Redford and writer Matthew Michael Carnahan, however, have so much to say and want to say it so badly that their articulate, if not particularly novel, argument stifles everything else, so much so that this script could have been presented as a radio play just as well. It is clear that Redford and collaborators want to stir a public debate, but they throw away all the weapons that cinema has for getting its point across. The medium is misused: it is as if they are using a toothbrush to open a can.
The film walks us through three storylines, which are loosely linked together. A political journalist (Meryl Streep) in Washington, DC, is invited for an exclusive interview with a senator touted as the rising star of the Republicans (Tom Cruise). The purpose of the interview is to sweeten the media coverage of a new military strategy, which is to be implemented in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan itself a couple of soldiers (Michael Pena and Derek Luke) get hopelessly stranded on a mountain top as a part of said new strategy.
In Los Angeles their political science professor (Redford) is discussing their decision to enlist in the army with a talented but disinterested and cynical student of his (Andrew Garfield). All three stories have a certain fascination, but play like something on a stage in a theater. The most interesting part is the confrontation between the skepticism of the journalist and the ivory-tower zeal of the senator. It is a capable summation of the pros and cons of how the War on Terror is being fought with the journalist making the better points, but being outmaneuvered by a political animal with one eye on the White House. The fact that these two characters are played by Streep and Cruise is nobly meant to draw more people to the issues raised. The irony is that if people are as inert as Redford complains they are (“Rome is burning!”), it is very likely that they will pay less attention to the subject and more to the performances, which are expectedly excellent.
After the fascination of the stories and the stars on screen wears off, it dawns on us that this is about as cinematic as it is going to get. One will appreciate the level of involvement of bona fide Hollywood royalty in the disussion, one may even sympathise with the points Redford makes, but this all will be mixed with disorienting sensation of having seen a dramatised debate rather than a genuine film. Despite the best intentions of all people involved, in this peculiar format Lions for Lambs sits very awkwardly onscreen; it is roaming hostile territory. Redford, Carnahan, Streep and Cruise should know that a Platoon or a Grand Illusion has the impact of ten films like Lions for Lambs.
