On one corner of the world, reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) is ushered into the offices of hot-shot Republican Senator and Presidential hopeful Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) for a one-on-one interview where he lays out an ambitious new plan of attack for the ground war in Afghanistan. It’s a public relations move on his part, sure, but that doesn’t make any less of a coup for the seasoned journalist. Yet as their talk probes deeper Janine can’t help but feel like she’s being led down a very dark road, her own ethical compass starting to quiver in ways she hasn’t felt in quite some time.

Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise spar in United Artists' Lions for Lambs

On another coast idealistic professor Dr. Malley (Robert Redford) is sitting in his office speaking with a  disaffected student named Todd (Andrew Garfield) trying to convince him to use his intellectual gifts for something other than pizza, beer and video games. He tells him a story of a couple of former pupils he felt could have really made a difference in the world, two young men from wildly divergent paths than his own who decided to put their idealism where their mouths war and enlist in a fight they didn’t completely believe in.

Finally, deep in the mountains of Afghanistan those very two former students Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Peña) find themselves trapped and injured while enemy fighters quickly surround them. The only thing they have to rely upon is each other, and while their commanders back at the base frantically try to find a way to engineer their rescue with each spent bullet the realization is downing upon both soldiers if help does come it will probably get their far too late.

The line between brilliance and frustrating disappointment can sometimes be a very thin one, and unfortunately for Redford’s new effort Lions for Lambs it is one the Oscar-winning filmmaker unfortunately comes down on the wrong side of. While the most overtly political film of the director’s career, this one feels more like a didactic college political science sermon more than it does anything else. And while pieces of it have a distinctly engaging edge and majesty on the whole I just didn’t like it.

Which is really too bad because some of this really is masterful, the scenes between Streep and Cruise having a furiously kinetic kick much of the rest of the picture lacks. For these two the sparks fly fast and furious, and while pretty much all of what they’re saying can be readily found in much of the columns, literature and blogs (both Right and Left) piling up seemingly everywhere you look by the time they were done I admit I wanted to hear more. These two knock it out of the park, and every time Redford chose to turn the proceedings back to them I suddenly lurched a bit more forward in my seat eager to eat it all up.

Unfortunately the rest of the piece never matches the intensity found here. The problem isn’t with the rescue mission in Afghanistan, those scenes are handled with distinct – if overly familiar – aplomb, but instead with the turgid and annoying dialogue inside Dr. Malley’s office. Each time the film shifts to them things come to an annoyingly turgid halt, the script suddenly beating viewer’s over the head with its idealistic give and take to the point nearly every word coming out of both professor and pupil’s mouth can’t help but sound like a cliché.

But what’s most irritating about this is just how easy it would have been to fix these problems. All that needed to be down was drop the scenes at the University completely and instead leave the other two stories alone. This would have allowed Redford to both dive more thoroughly into the debate between Roth and Irving while also ratcheting up the tension of Ernest and Arian stranded in the frigid cold of a war zone. Audiences are smart, they could have figured out the themes being presented inside Matthew Michael Carnahan’s (The Kingdom) multilayered script, and in the end I think by just keeping things juxtaposed between these two events the film could have been something downright extraordinary.

Instead the screenwriter felt compelled to spell things out so that even a blind person could clearly see the point blinking in bright twinkling neon right before them and Redford follows right along letting him do so. The pair hammer everything home with a resounding thud to the brainpan, and instead of treating their viewers with a modicum of restraint and letting them make up their own minds they spell it all out. It’s both exasperating and impertinent, and every time I wanted to cut the film a break in would come the professor and his whiny pupil and all my good will would evaporate like the frozen morning dew. 

I feel, in a way, I’m being too harsh here. There is a lot of valid arguing going on here, justifiable opinions being presented both sides of the debate could probably find relative merit in embracing. I just don’t like feeling like I’m being preached to. More, I don’t like coming to the conclusion that I’m stupid if I don’t take the final morals and beliefs expressed by the filmmakers as gospel (even if I am already inclined in my normal everyday life to do so). Lions for Lambs may mean well, but if I wanted a lecture I’d go back to the University of Washington and enroll in a Poly-Sci class.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Lions for Lambs Theatrical Trailer