Review of Lions for Lambs (2007) by Marat P — 17 Sep 2009

If you thought this film was simply repeating and summarizing more liberal positions on the Iraq War, you weren't paying attention, and entirely missed the point. The sole point of this film isn't to inform, or to educate. It's to prod you into evaluating the value of a life.

Yes, it's preachy. Yes, four of the characters are arche-typical. But if you let that distract you from the powerful drama (and I'm not talking about our soldiers on a ridge) that unfolds and develops, you've missed this film's greatest assets. The drama is played out not only in the (downplayed) tension between the three parallel stories taking place, but in the personal dilemmas that each of our 4 arche-typical characters face. Streep's unfolds as she loses her moral high ground and is forced to confront the fact that she put her integrity up for sale, just like the man she has lost all respect for in front of her. Garfield's develops as he confronts not his apathy, but his decision to insulate himself against both potential failure, and certain sacrifice. Redford's is born out of his need to reconcile his own ideas about service with the doctrine of self-sacrifice he preaches to his favored students. Cruise's is perhaps the most obvious, as his worst fears are realized when the operation is goes awry, and he is forced to internally confront those nagging questions Julia had posed (hence his seemingly unnecessary justification at the end of their interview, which throws Julia off).

So by the end of the film, you have 4 different perspectives on what a life is: a treasure or a tool; a choice or a potential, and what it's worth as each of those abstracts. Each character struggles to reconcile their view, with another's. The only two that don't, are our two soldiers on that ridge in Afghanistan. They have already reconciled all four of those perspectives, providing the outcome of the film's events with plenty of irony for the viewer to ponder. In this irony however, lies the real tragedy. Hence the film's title.

Writers will rate this film higher than critics; critics don't f*cking like movies. Writing is fantastic, performances are excellent, direction is visually impressive and the characters are both rendered and captured perfectly. This is an outstanding film. Don't watch it if you have no interest in politics; if you're a conservative this film will piss you off, even though it shouldn't. Lol.