The title, Lions for Lambs, refers to the idea that the War on Terror is being fought by lions on the front lines, but is led by lambs who sit on Capitol Hill without a sliver of combat experience. The metaphor also works to describe the film itself. It has a cast of lions—Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Tom Cruise—but the writer and director (who happens to be Redford) make up a small flock of lambs, as evidenced by the film’s ambitious objectives and the Happy Madison movie length that it tries to complete them in. Ironically, the film resembles the flawed mindset of the war that it is attempting to criticize. Just as the military believed they could overtake Baghdad in six weeks, the filmmakers believed that they could neatly compartmentalize post-9/11 American hypocrisy into a 90-minute box.
The movie interweaves three concurrent events. In the nation’s capitol, Senator Irving (Cruise), a young neo-conservative who wants to get the public’s mind off the failures of the War on Terror, is pitching a brand spankin’ new strategy to reporter Janine Roth (Streep), that, according to him, is sure to ‘get the W’ for America. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Irving’s plan of action is failing. After an army aircraft takes severe enemy fire, two troops are forced to parachute into the wintry depths below and face the waiting Taliban. The two soldiers were students of Dr. Stephen Malley (Redford), a political science professor who is trying to engage disenchanted students.
Admittedly, the movie raises pertinent questions in some engaging dialogue. But when you get right down to it, Lions for Lambs is a movie built on ideas, not people. And without our own kin at the core, there’s little opportunity for Redford to create the type of emotion we look for in dramas, the kind that continues to bite at us days after seeing it.
Three stars
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