Lions for Lambs
2007
***
Director: Robert Redford
Cast: Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Andrew Garfield, Michael Peña, Derek Luke, Peter Berg
Two simultaneous conversations take place in this very talky film. A college professor tries to engage his talented but increasingly apathetic student, while a Senator briefs a veteran journalist about the new military strategy in Afghanistan which has just put the teacher's two former students in jeopardy. There's solid acting and two hours worth of sharp dialogue in 90 minutes, but it's unclear what this middle-of-the-road political drama wants to tell us. It gives us an academic who tries to activate his students to make a difference, but then shows us the ensuing tragedy. It criticises the country's militant foreign policy, but then tries to make our eyes swell with patriotism. Redford wants to have the cake and eat it too.
