Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little review of the upcoming Tom Cruise/Robert Redford/Meryl Streep political flick LIONS FOR LAMBS. This spy didn't like it, but had a lot of fighting with his friends afterwards about the subjects brought up by the flick. Ah, politics... here's the review! Enjoy, but beware of spoilers!

Hey Harry. I just came back from a screening of "Lions for Lambs" at my University theater. I went with a group of friends, none of whom had any idea what the movie was about. For those of you who don't know, the movie tells three seperate stories, all of which are supposed to relate to each other.
The first is Tom Cruise, a US senator, talking to Meryl Streep, a journalist, about the senator's new offensive in the war on terror.

The second story is Robert Redford (the director) playing the part of a college professor who calls in a student (Andrew Garfield) to have a discussion about his grades and politics.

The third story is a tale of two soldiers who fall out of a helicopter in enemy territory, and wait for rescue as the enemy closes in.

First off, the entire movie reminded me of Crash. Not just because it's a hopeless outcry against the current state of affairs, but because Robert Redford is content to just point out the sad state of things, but never offer any potential answers or resolutions. Also the entire movie was just a series of jarring cuts between the three stories with no real relation between any of the stories.

The Cruise/Streep and Redford/Garfield conversation are interesting enough, and bring up several good topics, even if these topics are just reiterations of everything we've heard the last two years. The story of the two soldiers behind enemy lines however, is just plain awful. The entire premise is ludicrous (the one soldier falling out of the helicopter and the other leaping after him, then both survive the fall onto a snow covered mountain) and the CG helicopter and misty breath are laughable, and the entire "mountain" is one of the most poorly constructed sets I've ever seen. Plus the entire story has no relevance whatsoever to the main topics of the movie. Abysmal.

I walked out of the theater very disappointed, as I was hoping for more from Redford, a director I really respect. Still, the entire way back to my apartment my friends and I argued over the themes of the movie, and we all got very passionate about our opinions. I think we're all going to think it over for a while, and discuss more of it in depth, which I suppose is what the movie was trying to achieve.

So as far as trying to spark debate, the movie works. But as for the movie itself? I'd recommend passing on it until it hits the rental shelves, then pick it up and watch it with some intelligent people whose opinions you respect, because afterwords the conversation you have will be worth more than anything you see or hear in the movie itself.

If you use this call me The Future King