Cynical Cinema

Robert Redford is an excellent film director.  Although he doesn’t get enough credit for it.  Quiz Show was one of the most under-rated films of the past fifteen years, as was The Milagro Beanfield War before that.  Just about the only Redford-directed film to get the credit it deserved was Ordinary People.  And likely, Lions For Lambs will fall into the same category, and be compeletely overlooked in the coming years.  The main problem with the movie is that despite the star power, (Tom Cruise, Redford, Meryl Streep), nobody saw this film, and it is likely that now it’s out on DVD, not that many more people will see it.  You see, it is a message movie, and this is the year with more message movies, and less people watching them, than ever before.  Thirty years from now, people will still likely know In The Valley of Elah, as I am convinced it will be considered classic down the line.  But other films, like Redacted and Lions For Lambs will fall into the also-ran category when message films are remembered years from now.

 Which is not to say Lions Foir Lambs is bad, it just doesn’t compare to In The Valley of Elah.  There are some great performances in the movie, and some great dialogue, but that’s about all there is.  There are three different stories being told, all of which are connected in some way.  Tom Cruise is playing a part for which he would appear to be typecast - a smarmy, sleazy Republican senator who has come up with a new military strategy to “win” the war in Afghanistan for the U.S.  He is detailing his plan to a skeptical reporter (Streep), who feels as though she has heard all this “hearts and minds” rhetoric before, and has a hard time believing anything the man says.  Streep is great, as always, as this woman who is both captivated by the senator’s personal charizma yet repulsed by his politics.  The problem in these scens is Cruise, however, as his dialogue doesn’t give him much to work with, and he comes off as an almost cartoonish political figure of questionable ethics.  It doesn’t take a genius reporter to see through him or his Vietnam-type rhetoric, we can all see it, since it is so obvious on the screen.

 The second scenario is the direct result of Cruise’s military strategy, which basically uses American soldiers as bait to flush out the Taliban.  Two soldiers are trapped behind enemy lines in the mountains of Afghanistan, with the enemy closing in.  And the third scenario is Robert Redford, as a university professor, reminiscing about two of his most promising, brilliant students.  The same two who are now trapped in Afghanistan.  This is a short movie, and it gives equal time to each of the three set pieces, which are, for the most part, well written.  Especially Redford’s exchange with a student who is not living up to his potential, which is poignant and intelligent.  However, there is nothing else happening in the movie.  Once the military has mobilized their helicopters to take the soldiers where they are going, there is no more movement.  Just three scenes in three locations, cutting in and out of each other.

 Doc watched this on the plane on the way back from his vacation, and he felt it was a left-wing propaganda piece.  It isn’t.  The intention of this film is not to be anti-republican, or anti-neocon, although it certainly comes off that way at times.  The intention of this film is to provoke thought, and that’s it.  The left-wingers will identify with Redford, who tries to convince his two students not to sign up for the army.  The right-wingers will identify with the two soldiers, whose reasons for enlisting are well thought out and make sense.  It has become the fashion to accuse a movie of being propaganda when it has a left-wing slant.  But how can a movie about Iraq or Afghanistan NOT have a left-wing slant when it deals with facts?  What would people call a film about Iraq where the “surge was working”, and the Iraqi people loved the American soldiers, and none of those civilians died, and everything was roses and kittens and victory?  Now THAT would be propaganda.