Two injured soldiers find themselves under fire on a snowy mountain in Afghanistan.  Meanwhile the Senator who okayed the mission (Tom Cruise) hypes it to a TV reporter (Meryl Streep), while on a college campus the soldiers’ former professor (Robert Redford) talks with a current student about the need to take action in one’s life.

CRITIQUE

Lions For Lambs is an odd film, literally two parts talky drama in which people discuss current issues, and one part intense war drama.  The result is very much a mixed bag; though director Robert Redford has cast this with very strong actors doing solid work, cutting between the three stories here feels disjointed and more than a little frustrating.

Ultimately, though there are things here that work well, this is an issue-heavy film that won’t be for all tastes, and which ultimately isn’t nearly as successful as one might have hoped, given the talent involved.

This was written by Michael Matthew Carnahan (The Kingdom), and the best of the three stories here is the one dealing with soldiers Ernest and Arian (Michael Pena and Derek Luke), friends who find themselves in a tough situation after their mission goes bad, and their scenes (even in their flashbacks to college) are the most honestly-dramatic in the movie.

Unfortunately, they are undercut by the fact that, just as we are really getting caught up in their tale, the movie continually cuts away for ten minutes to the other stories; the film would have been much, much better if it has just stuck with Ernest and Arian throughout.

Instead, we get a talky interview between Senator Tom Cruise and reporter Meryl Streep, that has some good, thoughtful ideas but which also feels static and familiar, as if we accidentally switched over from HBO to CNN.  The point is how politicians can manipulate news for their own ends, and Cruise is convincing as a smooth Republican trying to sell the ongoing wars in the Middle East, but it just isn’t as interesting as the actual combat stuff.

The third section of this movie involves a professor (Robert Redford) talking with a student, trying to rouse him to take action with his life; the tie-in is that the two soldiers were once students of Redford.  But though again there are some good ideas being batted around here, like the Cruise/Streep section it also feels talky and static.  And the end of the movie seems to undo a lot that has come before; ultimately it’s hard to really know what young people watching this might actually take away from it.

Still, for all that doesn’t work, it’s an interesting failure that does have some rewards along the way, the short 90-minute running time is a plus, and fans of the actors and the subject matter might want to check it out.

THE VIDEO

Lions For Lambs is presented in widescreen.  No technical info was sent with the screener disk that was sent, and though some shots are crisp, some of the nighttime war stuff was hard to make out.  There were also some glitches on the extras.

THE AUDIO

Lions For Lambs is presented in English 5.1 DTS and English 5.1 Dolby Surround, and French and Spanish Dolby Surround.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There’s a Commentary by Robert Redford, which is generally listenable; his voice alone makes it work.  But he’s much more concerned with talking about the characters, plot and ideology of the movie than about nuts-and-bolts filmmaking.

The Making of Lions For Lambs (21 minutes) is a fairly straightforward making-of, with interviews with the major players; it’s best watched after the movie, because they talk about a lot of plot points.

Script to Screen (8 minutes) focuses more on the screenplay, by writer Matthew Michael Carnahan, and its interesting story structure.  There is some informative stuff here, though this was buggy on the DVD I got; the image froze after several minutes, though the audio continued with no problems.

UA Legacy is a 7-minute collection of clips from UA movies.  It’s essentially just a commercial for all their DVDs, but it’s still worth watching, because so many of the movies are great.  Though there were some video problems with this section as well.

There are several Trailers for this film, as well as for other releases.

FINAL THOUGHT

This is a flawed work that isn’t for all tastes, but for those who are intrigued, there are some interesting things here.