Review of Lions for Lambs (2007) by Dillinger P — 09 Jan 2015

With films like Lions for Lambs, its overall themes and tones, although relevant, come at a cost for lengevity. Were I to watch this back in 2007 my consensus of this outing may have been dramatically opposite from now.

But then when making a film set during any current period, it really is hard to predict the future. Lions for Lambs centers around 3 couplings, a PR free meeting between the Senator of the USA and an experienced journalist surrounding a new plan of action for the war on terror in Iraq.

It follows the meeting of tutor and student in a modern day society and it follows the horrifying predicament that 2 young American soldiers are put in and basically tries to tie them all into a nutshell, without being to controvesial, while at the same time trying to hit those marks.

The conclusion is a jumbled mix of excellent ideas and performances, with horrific gaps in pacing and very little feeling of relevancy between the meetings until the very end, by which point it feels more tacked on that anything else.

The cast are all excellently chosen, Cruise plays the Senator as smug and arrogantly as you would expect him to, really playing to his strengths with his perfect smile, with serious undertones. Meryl Streep also does a fine job as a journalist, trying to be used to force propaganda against the people of America.

Equally Robert Redford and Andrew Garfield both turn in extremely viable performances of student/teacher mentoring. The week link are the soldiers, although their situation is on the surface, the most thrilling, it just lacks any real attention, acting like more of a tool to intercut between both meetings.

Redford does well directing his actors, with powerful performances but when the string is so loose between them its hard to find weight behind it all. The ideas are yet again brilliant, controversial and meaningful to the world, not just the american people, but it still leans heavily on the good old USA side, meaning that we dont really get a sense of the opposing side, almost making this a one sided arguement, were it not for Meryl Steep and Andrew Garfield.

It looks nice in places, and as short sequences the 3 all make for some entertaining pieces of drama, but by the end you can visabley see the seems just unbuckle before your very eyes. Watch if you wanted to catch this but never got round to it, but there are plenty of other offerings out there that give something more accurate.