In "Lions for Lambs," Robert Redford's newest directorial offering, Redford casts himself as a professor at a California university. The film features three interlocking stories; Redford's has him lecturing a student for refusing to show up to class. This movie makes its audience feel like the student, and the professorial Redford is very disappointed in his pupils. Instead of making a movie enjoyable to watch, Redford makes this one more like a diatribe, delivering the most boring lecture since George Clooney's Oscar acceptance speech.
The student, Todd Hayes (played by newcomer Andrew Garfield), has stopped attending class even though he's preternaturally bright - also clean-cut and white. This is, of course, an ever-so-subtle metaphor. He's like America; we don't turn out to vote or participate in government even though we're awesome and privileged.
He is presented in contrast to two other young men, Arian Finch (played by Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Peña), who decide to drop out of college and join the Army. Redford himself is clearly not a supporter of the War on Terror, and the film suggests that it's almost ludicrous to leave college to join the military while the country is in the midst of a few unwinnable wars. Setting their story in Afghanistan is even more absurd, since there doesn't seem to be a mission there at all.
Redford's character, Professor Stephen Malley, explains that while he doesn't like the decision, he greatly respects the fact that they made one. Apparently any action, no matter how poorly-conceived, is laudable.
Meanwhile, across the country, U.S. Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) is explaining a new plan of attack in Afghanistan to reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep). Their dynamic is fascinating since Cruise is doing what he does best: playing a man with steel-eyed determination who is absolutely certain that he is correct. Streep, meanwhile, continues her run of playing intelligent women in their early 60s who sometimes have a hard time verbalizing their thoughts and feelings. She suspects that there is a story behind what the senator is feeding her but feels conflicted about what to report.
Here, Streep stands in for the media who she portrays as having let themselves be steamrolled by the chicken hawks that led this nation into war. This is a fertile point explored extensively in the collected oeuvre of Jon Stewart, but here it just emerges muddled.
Is Redford suggesting that the government is actually throwing a fake-out and lying outright about its war plans in order to accomplish something sinister and nonspecific? This might be implied by the film if Redford hadn't explicitly stated otherwise on numerous occasions.
It would appear that the entire scene, which makes up approximately one-third of the movie, is just nonsense words; Cruise just keeps talking at Streep until she leaves the room. Redford seems to worry that the audience is not convinced that Cruise is a Republican senator when it is first announced, so the rest of the scene is devised to make this point clear.
He leans in close to Streep and demands she answer the question, "Do you want to win the War on Terror?" Everyone's seen it; it's in all the trailers, as are all the lines in this movie that are even remotely interesting.
The movie has produced heated debate all over the Internet with arguments ranging from "This is not a good movie!" to "This movie is a piece of liberal propaganda!" The creators would purport that this was the intent of the film: for people to discuss its themes and purpose. In actuality, the film has the same effect as people who yell political opinions and hold signs on street corners. The preaching is frankly annoying - especially since in this case it costs $10 to hear - and eventually, viewers realize what's being said doesn't even make much sense.
