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Critics Consensus: Despite its powerhouse cast, Lions for Lambs feels like a disjointed series of lectures, rather than a sharp narrative, and ends up falling flat.
Critic Consensus: Despite its powerhouse cast, Lions for Lambs feels like a disjointed series of lectures, rather than a sharp narrative, and ends up falling flat.
All Critics (181) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (48) | Rotten (133) | DVD (3)
Less a war drama than a set of dueling position papers.
It means to use the Cruise-Redford-Streep star power to get us talking about things we ought to be talking about.
The film is built not upon characters and plot but upon ideas. That would be fine if the ideas were revolutionary or interesting, but they're fairly commonplace.
It's definitely flawed but I am recommending it.
There is much talk of paralysis in Robert Redford's what's-wrong-with-America movie Lions for Lambs, and there is a whole lot of the same in the movie itself.
Though these dialogues are worthy, the medium doesn't seem right for the message.
A film about engagement that fails utterly to engage? This may, in itself, be some kind of achievement, but who gives a stuff. I may now be even less engaged than I've ever been.
Pitched with utter sincerity and rigorously filmed sans complexity, energy, life
Lions for Lambs is movie mutton.
The film's points are made obvious the first minute and then monotonously drilled ad nauseum the remaining 87.
Slowly, you suffer the creeping realization that nothing is going to happen. Nothing.
for the rest of us who think that a piece of cinema should be more than that, Lions for Lambs leaves us feeling empty rather than sparked by the zeitgeist the film attempts to capture.
The premise of the film is actually very interesting. It views the US war on terror from different parallel angles: a liberal reporter interviewing a republican senator (Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise), a university professor trying to get his student to become political again (Robert Redford and Andrew Spiderman Garfield) while two US soldiers, his former students, are under attack in the Afghan mountains. With names like this, you expect the acting to be top notch and the dialogs to be smart and to the point and all that's the case, especially in the excellent Washington part. The film has a lot of smart things to say about the state of America in its war on terror and demands to open up the discussion again. That's a noble thought. Sadly, the Uni office section doesn't always get to the point as sharply and the Afghan story line ends in the expected preachy way. In the end you're wondering what was actually accomplished in those 90 minutes. A lot is hinted at, nothing's resolved. But then again, at least it made you think about it all, that's gotta count for something.
Super Reviewer
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Separate stories connected by a common theme telling a story from different perspectives made the movie relevant to political discussions about American policies and ideas of war. The movie also does the best job showing the price of war with the great lives sacrificed often for unjust reasons.
It's frustrating me to see the critics rating this movie as if it was the worst of the year ! When I saw the theatrical trailer, I was totally waiting for the movie it actually shows: a movie where people talk... Talk about one of the most important subject of our time. I was not waiting for a thriller with conspiracies in every corner like the critics seemed to ! Okay, maybe the story was a little slow (but don't get me wrong, every lines were astonishing and the movie contains some breathtaking war scenes), but I thought each word was chosen perfectly and said by actors at their best. Ahh the actors ! Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise were completely admirable ! And well Robert Redford, without compting in his excellent direction job, acted greatly. By forgetting what the critics said negatively about the abrupt ending, on my side, I thought it was very clever. Finally, like it or not, it's still a movie every one should see.
I really didn't care all that much for the story, but it did have some great acting performances. Tom Cruise obviously stole the show with his corrupt politician character, but it's also some of the best acting i've seen from Robert Redford in a while. I think it mainly failed due to the fact that everyone already figures that there was/is corruption in the Iraq War so there weren't any real surprises.
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