Further Details

Title: Lions For Lambs [DVD] [2007]
Format: DVD
Condition: New
Number Of Discs: 1
Release Date: 21/04/2008
Actors: Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, Michael Peña, Andrew Garfield
Director: Robert Redford
Audio Language: English, Unqualified (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Runtime: 1 hour and 28 minutes
Region Code: DVD: 2 (Europe, Japan, Middle East...)
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Subtitle Language: English
Certificate: Unrated
Description: Political thriller looking at the effect the war on terror has on a disparate group of Americans. When West Coast University students Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Pena) make the bold decision to join the army in the war on terror, their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley (Robert Redford), is both moved and distraught. As Arian and Ernest fight for their lives on the killing fields of Afghanistan, they become the tie that binds together two stories on opposite sides of America. In California, an anguished Dr. Malley attempts to reach a privileged but disaffected student (Andrew Garfield), who is the very opposite of Arian and Ernest. Meanwhile, in Washington the charismatic Presidential hopeful, Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise), is about to unleash a shocking revelation to a probing TV journalist (Meryl Streep). As the complex, interweaving drama progresses, the characters' fates become inextricably linked.
The considerable authority of Robert Redford pulls some heavyweight talent into Lions for Lambs, a rare Hollywood foray into flat-out political filmmaking. Three dramas, all connected, play out simultaneously during the same hour: On a mountainside in Afghanistan, two U.S. soldiers (Michael Pena and Derek Luke) find themselves stranded during a new military surge; on Capitol Hill, a Republican senator (Tom Cruise) tries to sell the new strategy to a seasoned reporter (Meryl Streep); and in California, a professor (Redford) tries to light the fire of commitment in an increasingly apathetic college student (Andrew Garfield).

Director Redford cuts back and forth amongst these arenas, a gambit which thankfully obscures how weak the one non-talkfest (the Afghanistan segment) really is. You can tell Redford and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan put their juice in the debate between Cruise and Streep, which summarizes Right and Left views on the Middle Eastern wars, and does so reasonably lucidly--although there is little here that would surprise anyone who has looked into the subject. The college section suggests Redford's belief that there are lots of people, distracted by tabloid culture and self-centeredness, who haven't looked into the subject. So he lectures us about it, sounding suspiciously like an old geezer remembering the good old days. If this film had been released in 2004, it might at least have bucked majority opinion, but coming out in the autumn of 2007, it already felt like old news. --Robert Horton,

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