Lions for Lambs Review

Can you remember when you went to high school? Remember how there always seemed to be that one person who tried being everything to everyone? This person would go out for a whole bunch of sports, take a stab at the school musical and run for class president. Remember this person?

Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs is that person from high school.

The film strives to obtain too many things, without achieving anything. The creators want this to be a message movie. They want this movie to have a complex, interlacing plot. They want this movie to be an awards contender. They want this movie to be meaningful, but it is ultimately a hollow shell that does not know what it truly wants to be.

The film opens with a weathered Robert Redford, as a political science professor, telling his students to do something meaningful with their lives. Michael Peńa and Derek Luke, who are two students listening to Redford’s lecture, decide to take his advice to heart. The two friends join the Army which confounds Redford a bit.

The film then flashes to the interlacing plot which has Redford holding a conversation with a new student of his, Andrew Garfield, who lacks the same passion that Peńa and Luke have, but is significantly smarter. Redford tries to give his message to Garfield, who half-heartedly listens. Redford’s performance does come across as a college professor because he stands before the camera delivering long speeches and doing nothing else.

Meanwhile, Republican Presidential hopeful Jasper Irving invites a leftist journalist, Janine Roth, to his office to unveil a new strategic plan in Afghanistan that will ultimately defeat the Taliban. Irving, played by Tom Cruise, is like most Tom Cruise characters: Cocky, smart and sharply dressed. However, Cruise does manage to elevate the role a little bit by embracing the character’s wicked slyness. Meryl Streep plays the pessimistic journalist and just merely goes through the motions.

The most intriguing plot line in the film is Peńa and Luke’s story. After joining the Army, they are trapped behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. These are two talented young men who salvage the film’s performances, even though they are only a third of the story.

The film’s polished images, crisp editing and simplistic camerawork all get overshadowed by the performances that feel like they have been crafted by CNN and Fox News. The script does not offer any help as it tries to out Sorkin Aaron Sorkin. This results in disaster as the players are able to deliver the lines, but they is nothing substantiating them because the film wants to run in so many directions at one time it can not focus on one thing for more than two minutes at a time.

Similar to that person in high school, this film had the potential to be fantastic. There always seemed to be this feeling that if the film could have maintained its focus it would have been a diamond in the rough. Instead, it remains a piece of charcoal that may age well with time, but currently has nothing to offer.

When to See It: On TNT, when they’re not showing Top Gun or The Shawshank Redemption