Product Description

Robert Redford Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep deliver "three knockout performances" (Vue Weekly) in this powerful story about how the decision makers at the top affect American soldiers on the ground half a world away.An idealistic professor (Redford) a charismatic U.S. Senator (Cruise) and a probing TV journalist (Streep) have opposing viewpoints about the actions of our nation and the attitudes of its citizens. But the human consequences of war become chillingly clear for two of the professor's former students who find themselves trapped behind enemy lines fighting for freedom... and their very lives.System Requirements:Running Time: 91 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/POLITICAL DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 883904100089 Manufacturer No: M110008

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4648 in DVD
• Brand: LIONS FOR LAMBS - WS (DVD MOVIE)
• Released on: 2008-04-08
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 92 minutes

Amazon.com
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 fall of 2007, it already felt like old news. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

My Review
When I first saw the trailers and previews for the movie I thought it looked very intriguing, especially with the actors on board. Then I heard pretty quickly that it was nose-diving at the box office, mainly because of its strong political bent to the left. Now, considering most of the country had already given up on the president and reasons for going to Iraq, and this movie was STILL getting reviews of being too far to the left I thought "Holy cow it must really be slanted". So I skipped the theatre experience for that reason. I just now finished watching the movie on dvd and I have to say, while there is a leftward bent to it, the bent is not as pronounced as I thought it would be. I thought they juxtaposed the reasons for and against waging war in the middle east with fairly equal consideration. Certainly, the character of GOP Senator played by Tom Cruise is painted as a manipulator of the press in the movie. But I actually thought that the dialogue was fairly factually based, and the debate his character engages in with the moderately left leaning reporter played by Meryl Streep was fairly written in the script. I think the Senator brought up many important moral points to consider in the "good vs evil and where does America fit into this" debate. And for that I give director Robert Redford credit, as I know he is very liberal. I have to say I didn't feel like I was watching a movie about a story, but rather something more akin to a Meet the Press debate. Which is fine, as I am interested in international politics. But that could be why it didn't do so well at the theatres and maybe why there were always stacks of dvds available at Blockbuster, as the movie can come across fairly politically preachy. I have to assume this is what turns most viewers off and killed word of mouth. Clearly Redford wanted to use this medium to tell us all what he thinks of the country and the GOP, which ain't much. Moving on... As I'm sure the other reviews mention, there are three dialogues or stories taking place - the Senator speaking with a reportor, the political science professor (Redford) motivating a gifted yet already cynical student to go into public office to make a difference in the world, and the story of two of the professor's earlier political science students deciding to serve their country by entering the military and going to battle in Afghanistan, which is really the only "story" part of the movie. I thought the script was well written, highly intelligent, fast paced and engaging. For this reason I think anyone with intelligence or the desire to gain knowledge in these areas will enjoy this movie, even if you disagree politically with what it is saying. It never hurts to consider different viewpoints. For the script-dialogue I give the movie 5 stars. For the plot of the film I give it 2 stars. There really is no plot, just a lot of discussion and points of ethics and morality to ponder as we Americans try to define our future role in this crazy world.

Ham-Handed Silliness
I rented the DVD because it starred (among others) Derek Luke. The guy is good. The movie is not. Redford directs this overtly ideological film like a carpenter with a pocket full of thumbtacks and a sledgehammer. The silliness cuts across party lines, with both Streep and Cruise vying for the "most befuddled character" award. No one wins.

An underrated and underappreciated war movie
This movie flopped at the box office, but it certainly didn't deserve to. It's an intelligent, incisive, and surprisingly balanced film that addresses ongoing concerns about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without pretension. It's talkative and politically charged, so it's not a movie for those looking for escapist fare (as the final scene suggests most Americans are). The most common criticism of Lions for Lambs is that its points have been echoed repeatedly by political pundits, and while that's true to some extent, there are a number of perspectives presented here that, as a whole, form an intriguing and thought-provoking work.

Director Robert Redford takes three different points of view on the overarching subject of the War on Terror: one from a hotshot Republican senator (Tom Cruise), another from a weary but still vocal history professor (Redford), and the last from two soldiers stranded on a mountaintop in Afghanistan (Derek Luke and Michael Peña) waiting for rescue but facing an imminent strike by Taliban inhabitants. Cruise is providing an interview to a TV reporter (Meryl Streep) and Redford is making a desperate attempt to one of his students to extract him from the political apathy that has started to consume him.

The acting is uniformly good, but Cruise and Redford especially stand out. Cruise is outstanding as the senator who is so charismatic he even convinces himself of his own lies. Cruise doesn't just play an unctuous pen pusher though; he imbues his character with more complexity than that. This is a man who genuinely wants to win the wars he helped get his country into and is willing to acknowledge some of his mistakes. He doesn't want to lose any more lives than he has to, but he is also undaunted in his mission. Redford presents a notable foil, even if the two never meet: his professor has the experience and the pain to back up his arguments, even if he is getting tired of spouting them. There's an elegance to his performance but also an urgency to it.

The beauty of Redford's approach is that it shows the political rhetoric (as exemplified by Cruise's character), public response (seen most clearly through Redford's character interacting with his dismayed student), and the consequences (portrayed in the Afghanistan scenes) of the wars that the US government has ignited. Most of the movie shifts between these three scenes, with some flashbacks that illuminate how a few key characters got to the states they ended up in. It's a smart move, because it juxtaposes several different sides of the arguments for and against the wars and doesn't overwhelm the viewer with one section for too long.

The impact of the three sections is fuller and more comprehensive in this way. At the movie's climax, all of the issues come together, and by the time the movie is over, the impact is that much more powerful. Between the political and academic debates and the action on the ground that is the result of political decision-making, Redford successfully shows how all of us are affected by these wars in different ways. Whether being motivated to surmount bureaucratic incompetence or deceived by its machinations, and between choosing to question and engage our political leaders and reporters or turning away from them in jadedness or indifference, we are all affected in some way and determine how complicit we become. Americans may not be ready to engage a movie that portrays such a tragic current event, or want to for that matter, as box office receipts have repeatedly shown, but perhaps that's part of the problem. Although long-winded at times, Lions for Lambs nevertheless understands and illuminates these messages effectively.