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LIBERTAS Review: Lions For Lambs
By Dirty Harry
Since the ad campaign began for Robert Redford's first directorial effort in seven-years we've been bombarded from every poster, television commercial, and blog ad with the film's righteous tag-line: What Do You Stand For? It's worth noting that the word "stand" is important enough to demand it be printed in red, and the word 'for" floats alone in a larger font to beg its own importance. To his credit, Redford's asking the question of our time. But if you think Lions For Lambs is his answer to that question, you'll be sorely disappointed.
United Artists gave Redford $35 million dollars to make his film, and yet, even with all that money and 88-minutes of screen time I can't tell you what he stands for. It's clear what he's against: the War on Terror, conservatives, people who haven't served in the military starting wars, and big corporations owning the news media. In fairness, he does urge us to get involved, picket, agitate, and ask questions, but are these things representative of a "stand?" I think more of a posture.
The good news is that with Lambs Hollywood's unknowingly, and at great expense, produced the strongest piece of right-wing propaganda since John Kerry was photographed squinting in all his brahmin, buck-toothed glory, a little to the right of Jane Fonda. Any parent with a child they suspect might be veering left need only sit that child down for a little Lions For Lambs refresher, because no kid will want to grow up to be anything like these gross pillars of sanctimony.
Redford plays Stephen Malley, a liberal political science professor at a generic California university desperate to mobilize a pupil he sees something in but who's satisfied to coast on the hip cynicism taught on The Daily Show (My analysis, not Malley's. He blames the actual news media and no doubt likes The Daily Show). Malley's also making up for a perceived past sin. He blames himself for inadvertently encouraging two former pupils, Ernest (Michael Peña) and Arian (Derek Luke) into joining the Special Forces.
As Malley reigns his inflated sense of self over his uninteresting student (Andrew Garfield), in the mountains of Afghanistan, Arian and the aptly-named Ernest are injured and pinned down with the Taliban fast approaching all because Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) put them there. You see, in Redfordland Senator's make war plans, and Irving's come up with this one thinking the fastest way to become President is to once and for all win the War on Terror. At least that's what he tries to get Time reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) to print as they verbally spar in his swank Senatorial office; her with that smug, mocking, half-smile that's cost more than one woman a decent husband, him summoning up that Tom-ness which worked right up until he met Oprah's couch.
The three storylines are intercut and play out in real time, a gimmick that adds nothing to the drama or tension and only gets bogged with a number of awkward flashbacks. But for more than two-thirds of the time we're stuck in single rooms watching thoroughly unlikable characters recite liberal talking points. Cruise may be playing a Republican Senator on paper, but his real job's to Bud Abbott the straight lines so Meryl can Lou Costello the juicy left-wing ripostes.
Lions For Lambs is plagued by one of the worst scripts ever produced as a major motion picture. And I'm talking craft, not politics. The dialogue's astonishingly bad, as proven by its overwhelming number of question-marks. Did no one bother to inform screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan that you don't use characters continually asking each other questions to produce plausible exposition? That's what God invented off-off-off Broadway for. But Lions for Lambs is literally eighty-eight minutes of statement-question / answer-statement-question / answer-statement-question… But none of it to reveal character or to explore any sort of theme. Rather, the whole exhausting enterprise sounds like a script produced of what Redford shouts at his television when Bill O'Reilly's on.
There's two key moments indicative of how little effort was put into the craft of storytelling. The first happens in the helicopter transporting Ernest and Arian to their position in the Afghan mountains. When they're hit by enemy fire the pilot loses control and Ernest is bounced out of the chopper and to the ground more than a hundred feet below. We assume he has to be dead, but Arian has other ideas and frantically calls for the pilot to turn around. In the chaos no one's listening, so Arian jumps out of the helicopter to save his friend. Yes, you read that right: He jumps out of a moving helicopter (without a parachute). And guess what? He lands with minor injuries just a few feet away from Ernest. Rambo never stretched credulity so far.
The second moment comes deep in the conversation between Cruise and Streep. As Cruise's Republican Senator makes an impassioned speech about the men and women in uniform and the nobility of their sacrifice, the music rises as Cruise's tears well. But this is a Republican don't forget; he must be faking — and so he is. Abruptly the Senator moves on to the next topic and the score awkwardly stops (why not a record scratch to really bring it home), and we're left with that shitty half-smile on Meryl's face and the funny feeling Redford's past his prime as a director.
Any worshipful fan of Cruise, Streep, or Redford who've gushed their willingness to watch their idol read a phonebook will come pretty close here and regret the hyperbole. The performances are across the board awful, but these are good actors, and in their defense no one could overcome this script.
Streep's by far the worst, overcompensating with self-conscious tics and fidgets, with Cruise a close second because he can't bring himself to believe in his character. There's no dimension to this Republican; he's simply manipulative. (Funny how Hollywood can always summon something to bring dimension and sympathy to drug dealers and child molesters, but never conservatives). Redford's Redford. He doesn't do much, and doesn't have to. He lets his wrinked mug and professory wardrobe do the it for him. Besides, I get the sense smug ain't much of a stretch for the Sundance Kid.
The production design and cinematography rival the script in ineptitude. Other than the Senator's office, the interiors are blah, flat, small, and unimaginative. Why Redford would stick us in a few locations for long periods of time that look like a 1950's Playhouse Theatre episode is beyond comprehension. Worse, are the scenes in Afghanistan where everything from the mountain site to the chopper looks oh-so-obviously computer rendered.
There's plenty more to criticize but I think you get the point that Lions For Lambs is the most expensive manifestation of Bush Derangement Syndrome yet. There's no other explanation, because you would have to be whacko out of your head to fund, produce, star, and distribute a film this embarrassingly bad. What Lambs is is a 2,000-plus screen monument to liberal stupidity. Seven-years of BusHitler raging within, and this is it? This is the manifesto? This? No answers? No solutions? No ideas…? Nope. Just an old man yelling at his TV.
"Do you want to win the war on terror?" Senator Irwin asks. Streep's reporter responds that it's not that simple. What in the hell is the matter with these people?
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