Lions for Lambs: political thriller or thinly-veiled propaganda?

Two people with differing political opinions have reviewed Robert Redford’s political drama, Lions for Lambs, which contains several references to current events in US government, journalism, foreign affairs, and education. These are their reviews.

Zac Estrada Rosales
News Editor
(Three stars)
Lions for Lambs is surprising on a number of levels. Yes, it’s certainly a didactic political film, but it’s by no means a reason to nap. It kept me wide awake.
This film has something for just about every interest. There is a war story with a good dosage of military action. There’s a sleazy politician with one thing on the brain and a talented but sadly naive journalist. And finally there’s the aging political science teacher trying to get a pompous frat boy to learn something instead of being fixated on what he already knows. Minus the war subplot, it’s my kind of movie.
Actually I didn’t even mind the war story because it’s actually interesting; it isn’t another Black Hawk Down rip off. Tom Cruise is amazingly convincing as a devilish politico too, and the guy playing the frat student is so real, I can attach several names of students I share classes with to this character. It’s hardly dramatized, which is a nice change.
I was astonished by the simplicity of Lions. It has three (possibly four) story lines, but there are no superfluous characters aside from those of the key seven. It’s only 90 minutes long too. If I were to make a film like this, chances are it would end up being three hours long with the director’s cut being another hour longer.
But if you haven’t been paying attention to current events outside of mainstream media, this film is wasted on you. It does let the side down by being mostly talk other than five cumulative minutes of action. But that’s fine with me.
Regardless, it’s great that Lions makes you think. What’s more, it has excellent dialogue, spot-on characters, and makes excellent points. You have to like politics or journalism, or have a slightly cynical view on life. So it’s not hard to understand why I’d see it again.

Tony Johnson
Special to The Forge
(Two and a half stars)
Going into this film, I was expecting nothing less than a full-blown liberal propaganda piece that would be a stone’s throw away from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. I was delightfully surprised to see this was not the case and that Redford had included a fairly balanced view. Of course, a balanced view in Hollywood is about as balanced as Air America, so this was still a rather biased film.
The main issue that was raised, of course, was the current state of affairs regarding the war in Iraq. On this topic, I felt that the film gave a mixed message. Redford’s character seemed to have a conflicting stand on the issue with two of his students having enlisted to fight in the war. He stated that he approved of their motives, but not of... well, their motives. So he supported them, but he...didn’t.
The film’s purpose seemed to have been marred by what seemed to be the requirement of still supporting the troops, and because of this, the message was rather conflicted. After leaving the theatre I didn’t really feel as if I had gained some kind of new insight as the film seemed to just rehash the same old points that have been brought up and addressed for the past few years.
The film basically stated that it agreed with the soldier’s need to fight, but not of their involvement in the military. The most interesting part of it all, however, was Tom Cruise’s portrayal of a Republican Senator. Most likely due to my rather conservative view I seemed to agree with a lot of what he said, while it seemed most of the others in the theatre did not. I also seemed to tune-out whatever conspiracy theory garbage that Meryl Streep put out as the nosey journalist. In the end though, this film seemed to put most people in their place and was surprisingly not nearly as one-sided as I expected.
In fact, the most anti-war part of the film were the end credits during which many silhouettes of people slowly disappear in the background.
Overall I left the theatre reaffirmed in my beliefs and not swayed in either direction, which is something to be expected in a movie where essentially nothing happened.