| Created 007.11.16; Updated 2007.11.16 |
This article originally appeared in Hollywood Today.
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Lions for Lambs Lays Down HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 11/08/07 — "I hoped that this film would provoke audiences to contemplate where we are in this country and how we got here," says director Robert Redford. "I think it's a film about personal responsibility, about young people accepting the role they play in shaping the future, and about how we each deal with our choices in life to try to make this a better world." 'Lions for Lambs' is Tom Cruise's first movie under the United Artists banner. More... |
Photos Copyright United Artists
In 'Lions for Lambs', Cruise is a slick senator who invites cynical journalist Meryl Streep to his office to give her a scoop on a new military push to win the war in Afghanistan, a plan being launched as they speak. So what does a seasoned reporter do when Cruise leaves the room mid-meeting to take an urgent private call? The senator's laptop rests invitingly open on his desk. Of course, Streep will slip behind Cruise's desk. What secrets are there that the senator doesn't want her to see? Is it a deliberate leak? Are we about to embark on 'The Bourne Ultimatum' or 'All the Presidents Men'? Neither. Streep never glances at the senator's computer. Instead, she admires his many celebrity photos on the wall behind his desk. Huh?
'Lions for Lambs' is a movie where everyone talks, and talks and talks. Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan was writing a play when he decided instead to make it a movie. Carnahan says he chose to, "juxtapose these clean, safe, office spaces where people are doing nothing more than having conversations, important conversations but still just talking to each other, with this deserted ridge high in Afghanistan where real lives are on the line." Streep says, "I thought the script was like a great play, with both immediacy and power." 'Lions for Lambs' does indeed feel like a play, but lacks power. 'Across the Universe', another recent film about war that also feels like a play, is a much more evocative experience.
Like the TV series '24', 'Lions for Lambs' traces the events of one day, but follows three separate stories. As Cruise and Streep make journalism into sausage, a nostalgically liberal Berkeley college professor Redford bends the ear of coddled drop-out political grad student Andrew Garfield, meanwhile former Redford students Derek Luke and Michael Pena fight the war ineptly in Afghanistan.
Luke and Pena have been sent in harm's way by Cruise to secure the high ground deep in a Taliban-controlled area. Unfortunately, these young heroes are slow to respond when they notice an anti-aircraft gun pointed their way. (Never mind how the anti-aircraft gun got on top of a remote mountain.) Instead of reaching for their Chinook helicopter's machine gun, they debate whether the AA gun can really shoot at them. While dodging bullets a minute later, the two fall out of the helicopter to land alive but badly injured on a snowy ridge. The aircraft's main door had been foolishly left open at high altitude in freezing weather flying over enemy territory. And, that's the best scene in the movie.
We're supposed to believe this is an anti-war movie. But, it's not the profound disillusionment of the soul-destroying horror of war of 'Apocalypse Now'. And, it doesn't harpoon American world police policy like 'Team America'. This is a morality play where the choice is to volunteer to be cannon fodder or live a meaningless superficial existence at home. Redford says, "I would never want to do something that was abject propaganda." Audiences may forgive propaganda (for example, 'Potemkin'), but not that a movie is dull.
Running Time: 1 hr. 32 min.
Release Date: November 9th, 2007 (limited)
MPAA Rating: R for some war violence and language.
Distributor: United Artists