Hollywood's senior liberal, Robert Redford, gets down to business on three fronts in his latest movie, the political drama Lions for Lambs.
As director, lead actor and producer, he racks up a long list of grievances in the film, the most political of the seven movies Redford has directed: the lust for power, war-mongering and incompetence in Washington, unmotivated students, uncritical journalists and the dumbing-down of US television.
The wordy drama plays out over three plots.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF FOX
Redford himself plays a California sociology professor who challenges a smart but disillusioned student (Andrew Garfield) to action through a word duel.
In Washington, the film delivers a liberal television journalist (Meryl Streep) into the hands of a charismatic Republican senator (Tom Cruise). The senator wants to wrap the skeptical but also ambitious reporter around his finger by giving an exclusive interview and winning her over as a mouthpiece for a new military strategy in Afghanistan.
At the same time two young Americans, one black (Derek Luke) and one Latino (Michael Pena), have volunteered to fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban. While at home the fighting is verbal, the two front-line fighters come under real arms fire on a snow-covered mountain.
Cruise, in the role of a senator and friend of US President George W. Bush, "comes from a very narrow singular point of view, which is basically the point of view that we have in the administration right now. It's very singular and ideological and you can't convince them any other way to think," Redford said.
The reaction from US critics has been mixed. The trade magazine Variety mocked it as a "star-heavy discourse," while Hollywood Reporter gave it this praise: "Politicians, the media, educators, military commanders and a docile public all come under fire in a well-made movie that offers no answers but raises many important questions."
Film notes:
Lions for Lambs
DIRECTED BY: Robert Redford
STARRING: Robert Redford (Professor Stephen Malley), Meryl Streep (Janine Roth), Tom Cruise (Senator Jasper Irving)
RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes
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