Lions For Lambs (Widescreen Edition)
by Robert Redford
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DVD details
Actor: Andrew Garfield, Meryl Streep, Michael Pe?a, Robert Redford, Tom CruiseDirector: Robert Redford
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-08
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: United Artists
DVD Reviews of Lions For Lambs (Widescreen Edition)
DVD Review: Lions for Lambs
Summary: 1 Stars
There are already some good reviews of this movie, but the one thing I haven't noticed anyone saying is that the movie has no story. It's pure liberal propaganda, a documentary buried in the look, but never reality of story within it's 3 interlaced pretences at stories. A "story" has literary elements, (say, "rules of engagment") including character, plot, setting, denoument, climax, any one of which missing renders it mere chatter. This offered only character, opinionated characters, poorly developed.
I recently read some Hollywood somebody defending such a story as this, claiming that life has no climaxes or endings, so such stories are more realistic. I can only pity the one who views life in such a way. All lives DO end, and all choices lead to denouments and climaxes, whether the individual wishes to graph his own or not. Those who spend theirs "looking for themselves," and whining, "What's it all about?" while seeking escape in whatever poison they chose, are simply not living as God intends. The life that is not worth dying for was not worth living.
Who could care what happened to any of these characters, other than the 2 on the battlefield, and they were far from realistic, behaving out of character for special forces fighters.
The clue as to where it was headed, which was nowhere, should have been obvious from its title, but unfortunately many viewers (self included) may not thought deeply about the title prior to watching.
If a viewer wants to waste time, assuming a viewer who actually has followed the politics of the past decade, this is a good one to watch. Any who actually want to deeply ponder the questions it ponderously pretends to raise about war and peace, life and death, principle vs. unprincipled, commitment vs. rhetoric, would do better to watch an old movie without politics, such as John Wayne's "The Cowboys," which gets down to the reality of the nitty gritty of right and wrong.
DVD Review: Think about why and how our leaders make decisions
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes this movie requires the viewer to pay attention. Yes it will make you think about your past experiences with college, the government and the media. I bought the DVD to give to my two grandsons who are in college and facing the reality of being an adult in today's world. But first I will give it to my sons, who, like me, faithfully served in the military and found our country's leaders and media lacking. This movie brilliantly shows the real world interplay of social and political forces that shape and alter our lives. DVD Review: Better than CNN or Fox News
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want to think critically about the real issues at stake in the politics surrounding the War in Iraq and Afghanistan, buy this movie. Both major viewpoints are represented honestly, and the movie leaves it up to you to decide.
Or, if you're a college student not sure what your role in society should be, buy this movie. Robert Redford's character's exchange with his student will speak to you, as it did to me.
DVD Review: Interesting Points of View, But Disjointed
Summary: 3 Stars
I like that there are multiple points of view given in one movie, but it was way too disjointed. A bit too cliche as well. Fascinating title though! I had no idea what it meant until I watched the movie.DVD Review: buried by preachiness, an important point
Summary: 3 Stars
I can understand why Lions for Lambs, Robert Redford's recent movie, received mixed reviews; in fact, I can completely understand why many people would hate it. It is preachy, very preachy. About a third of the movie shows Tom Cruise's character (a Republican senator) preaching at Meryl Streep's character (a veteran reporter) in support of the administration's war on terror, while the reporter in turn preaches to the senator about the mistaken war in Iraq. In the process, they preach at each other about their complicity in America's failures.
That's already a lot of preaching.
But here is the genius of the movie: it questions whether the political debates in government and academia have any meaning at all. The sympathetic heroes of the movie are two young men who tire of the arguments and choose action, to wit, going to Afghanistan to fight for their country. They end up in mortal danger as a result of political decisions that are being debated in offices and hallways a long way away.
The movie itself has four main settings. The first is the office of the senator. In the second, a university professor's office, Robert Redford's character debates a promising but disengaged student about his role in life. In the third setting, the reporter is arguing in her editor's office about the role of the press. The fourth is a snowy mountain ridge in Afghanistan.
The first Great Debate is between the senator and reporter. Both are consummate insiders. The senator is a key player in a new aggressive military strategy in Afghanistan, with implications for Iraq, Iran, and the entire Near East. The reporter's first reporting job concerned Vietnam, and her liberal sensibilities --- anti-Republican and anti-war --- come through loud and clear. After running though the well-worn arguments for and against military action in Asia, the two end up challenging each other over who is using who in the relationship between media and government. The reporter takes the argument back to her editor and it takes on a different slant: what is the relationship between the corporate world and `real' news?
The more accessible argument is between the professor and the student. The professor is a Vietnam vet turned protester, who became a professor. He thought that he could use his mind, his words, and his professorial credentials to change the world. He failed. He resigned himself to a different mission: to single out a few exceptional students and push them toward greatness.
Now, those of us who teach the social sciences can be forgiven, I think, for considering the professor something other than a failure. We teach about history and geography and politics, but these are things that don't necessarily reach most kids, but for good reason. They do not have a frame of reference for understanding the vital importance of these subjects. But as they grow up, they will use what we teach --- though probably without awareness ---- as they connect the mental dots and make sense of the world.
The student opposite Redford's professor was me. He became a cynic, figuring at a young age that certain elites make the decisions, and that even entering those elites is corrupting. So make some money, live the good life, and wash your hands of the decisions made in the halls of power.
But I had two fundamental underpinnings that determined my post-college life. I considered myself a responsible agent --- that I and I alone was the determinant of my life. And second, that I owed it to others that I contribute something in exchange for a good life. So I joined the military, thinking that in serving my country, I was fulfilling both of my duties.
This brings me to Afghanistan. Two soldiers were in the professor's class. They chose action, they chose to do something. They believed that serving their country gave them credibility as agents of change that academia did not. The professor tried to dissuade them, but they joined the Army, as special forces soldiers. This put them in grave danger, and this tied them to the other debates.
Should the student live the good life, or risk being pinned down by the Taliban in an icy gorge in the Hindu Kush? How much does it matter if the senator's military plan is the right one? Does it diminish the soldiers' nobility and exonerate the professor and student who choose a battlefield of words in a cushy college setting? If the soldiers die, is the reporter to blame for playing the insiders' games instead of sounding the alarm? Does the path of action turn the soldiers into pathetic pawns in a game played for the benefit of distant powers? Or are they the only real players, and the pathetic ones are the suits who send our hopes into the snowy skies over a shadowy and barren country?
Description of Lions For Lambs (Widescreen Edition)
Robert Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep deliver "three knockout performances" (Vue Weekly) in this powerful story about how the decision makers at the top affect American soldiers on the ground half a world away.An idealistic professor (Redford), a charismatic U.S. Senator (Cruise) and a probing TV journalist (Streep) have opposing viewpoints about the actions of our nation and the attitudes of its citizens. But the human consequences of war become chillingly clear for two of the professor's former students, who find themselves trapped behind enemy lines, fighting for freedom... and their very lives.
The considerable authority of Robert Redford pulls some heavyweight talent into Lions for Lambs, a rare Hollywood foray into flat-out political filmmaking. Three dramas, all connected, play out simultaneously during the same hour: On a mountainside in Afghanistan, two U.S. soldiers (Michael Pena and Derek Luke) find themselves stranded during a new military surge; on Capitol Hill, a Republican senator (Tom Cruise) tries to sell the new strategy to a seasoned reporter (Meryl Streep); and in California, a professor (Redford) tries to light the fire of commitment in an increasingly apathetic college student (Andrew Garfield). Director Redford cuts back and forth amongst these arenas, a gambit which thankfully obscures how weak the one non-talkfest (the Afghanistan segment) really is. You can tell Redford and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan put their juice in the debate between Cruise and Streep, which summarizes Right and Left views on the Middle Eastern wars, and does so reasonably lucidly--although there is little here that would surprise anyone who has looked into the subject. The college section suggests Redford's belief that there are lots of people, distracted by tabloid culture and self-centeredness, who haven't looked into the subject. So he lectures us about it, sounding suspiciously like an old geezer remembering the good old days. If this film had been released in 2004, it might at least have bucked majority opinion, but coming out in fall of 2007, it already felt like old news. --Robert Horton
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