Controversial mega-star Tom Cruise has a lot riding on his latest feature, "Lions for Lambs." To some, the actor's star might be fading thanks to a certain couch-jumping incident or his continuing adherence to Scientology. His first film after the attention-grabbing stunt on Oprah, "Mission Impossible III," failed to rake in the huge box office numbers for which Cruise is known. "Lions," costarring Meryl Streep and directed by Robert Redford, is Cruise's chance to prove that he still has the Midas touch. On paper, the movie may seem like a recipe for success, but on screen the monotony is unbearable, and the struggling Cruise should have stayed far away from it.
Admirably, "Lions" is a socially conscious film that covers a wide variety of current political and ethical topics, including the marriage of the government and the media and the chaos of the war on terror. Unfortunately, the film chooses to deal with these questions solely through talk. A lot of talk. Cruise plays Jasper Irving, an ambitious politician who sits down for an interview with the jaded journalist Janine Roth (Streep) to sell a new strategy that he assures will bring total victory in Afghanistan. Thousands of miles away, two soldiers taking part in the first mission of Irving's new plan of action find themselves trapped in the middle of a hostile Afghan mountain range. And at a California university, the professor who has taught the two soldiers, Dr. Malley (Redford), meets a brilliant student who has grown disillusioned by politics.
Don't be fooled if any of this sounds remotely exciting, because the movie basically boils down to an office-hours meeting, a press interview and two men sitting in the snow. The irony of it all is that the characters often make references to how inconsequential their conversations are. When the student asks Malley if people put themselves at risk by sealing envelopes for a political campaign, Malley coldly replies, "more than talking." But the fact that they realize just how boring their little chats are fails to make the movie any more exciting.
Having a film centered on conversations about key questions of the day may have worked had any of the actors bothered to inject their personas with some nuance and their rhetoric with excitement. Cruise is all bluster as Irving, making his key question — "Do you want to win the war on terror?" — sound like it was being uttered by a grating Fox News pundit. If anything, Cruise seems constrained by the relatively quiet role, which renders his usual screen presence all but nonexistent. The veteran Redford fares little better, playing key moments in Malley's development with so much understatement that he robs them of their potential poignancy. When his star students, who go on to be the soldiers caught in Afghanistan, reveal that they have agreed to join the Army, Redford reacts as though they had told him they were dropping his class.
All of these flat performances make Meryl Streep's brief moment of excitement when she struggles with her journalistic principles seem almost revelatory. As she paces around, she loudly asks her boss, "How can you stand it being so hot in here?" before turning down the heat. This moment of discomfort exposes her character's anxieties more effectively than a hundred lines of dialogue and is the only time in the film where any of the actors show any real passion.
Matters are not helped by Redford's lackluster direction, exemplified by the soldier's battle in the Afghan wilderness at the start of the film. The confrontation, in which the two men fall from a helicopter, should have felt like a high-stakes battle, but instead it is obviously computer-manufactured and unconvincing. Even the mountain plateau where they land has all the atmosphere and menace of a set in a high school play.
As inept as Redford is in representing the battle, his heavy-handed staging is even worse. Take for instance, Irving's office, which features framed photos of Cruise with major neoconservative politicians, including a smiling President Bush. To signal that the Republican Irving is a warmonger, his office is also decorated with presidential quotations expounding upon the benefits of war. Redford uses the setting not as a means to add psychological depth to Irving but simply as an easy way to characterize the politician as a liberal's nightmare.
With its dialogue-heavy plot, mediocre performances and laughably amateurish direction, "Lions for Lambs" garners the worst sort of reaction from its audience: absolute indifference. Cruise and company have crafted a film, to coin a phrase from one of the characters, that "talks a lot but says nothing." If you are hoping for any sort of political enlightenment, look at Cruise's powerful "Born on the Fourth of July" or Redford's seminal "All the President's Men." Whatever you do, look elsewhere. You will find "Lions for Lambs" 90 minutes of wasted time.
Lions for Lambs. MGM Studios.
Pros
Ambitious, good previews precede the movieCons
Tom Cruise lacks usual screen presence, too much dialogue, action sequences unconvincing1 out of 5 paws
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