Lions for Lambs(2007)

Director: Robert Redford

Lead actors:  Robert Redford as Professor Stephen Malley, Meryl Streep as Janine Roth, Tom Cruise as Senator Jasper Irving, Michael Pena as Ernest Rodriguez, Derek Luke as Arian Finch Andrew Garfield as Todd Hayes.

Genre: drama film

Synopsis: The general picture of this film is formed by means of three separate stories which are closely interwoven with each other. The first story is about Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) who invited journalist Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) to announce his new war strategy in Afghanistan against the Taliban in the hope to convince the public of the perfection of his plan. The plan is to send small groups of soldiers into strategically important objects to fight with Taliban. The second story tells us about professor of the West Coast University, Dr. Malley (R. Redford) who tried to convince his very smart and budding student Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) to continue to attend his lectures on political science. To make Todd think, Dr. Malley told him about his two former students who went to army to fight for country which they wanted to change. And the third one is about these two students of Dr. Malley, Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Peña), who were sent in Afghanistan and trapped by the Taliban.

Review. First of all I’d like to say that Robert Redford’s work is worthy of respect at least for his creative boldness. He paraded all vices of American people and vices of the whole world as well, such as ostentatious politics directed at the total submission of the people; venal journalists; degradable youth and in general public inactivity. This film with difficult, at the first sight, and deep sense shows us the reality which reigns in our world nowadays. The reality is that the struggle for “the high goals” nourished by beautiful words of politicians and propagandized by them through the Mass Media (as the most effective means of suggestion) is nothing as the struggle for power and submission. The main characters personify the typical system of this reality: politicians, such as Senator Irving, try to convince the public of necessity of any political decisions and force people to fight for them “whatever it takes”. But there are people such as Arian and Ernest who go to fight without persuasions. They have to go to war to die for country (which doesn’t value their death, though) because they have nothing in this country expect their great wish to change it. But there are people who don’t want to change this system because they see no sense in it (like Todd). Moreover, there are people, such as Dr. Malley and journalist Janine Roth, who also want to change their country and they try to do it. They realized that «If you don’t STAND for something, you might FALL for anything». Such people try to call up the public for action and change person’s mind, as Dr. Malley tried to call up Todd for political classes and as the journalist tried to expose false information of Senator.

As for actors, I think their play was excellent. Tom Cruise assumed an unusual for him role of hypocritical politician, but he played it perfectly. As for role of Meryl Streep, I guess it was one of the best of hers. The role of smart and experienced woman very suits her. Also I liked the play of the young actor Andrew Garfield.  I have seen his play in another movie “Social Network” where he performed a similar role of smart student. I believe it’s his dramatic type.

So, on the whole, “Lions for Lambs” is one of those films that we should watch more than once. This film makes the audience think about serious problems which often nobody want to think of. These are problem of senseless wars, implicit faith and total public submission.