Lions For Lambs [2007] | ![Lions For Lambs [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mDRYtjrlL._SL75_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Robert Redford
Actors: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Andrew Garfield, Derek Luke, Tom Cruise
Studio: MGM Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £9.69
You Save: £10.30 (52%)
New (20) Used (5) from £5.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 1756
Format: Pal
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 88
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5039036036900
ASIN: B0012OTS2O
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: April 21, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Still Sealed........Region 2.........UK Release
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Amazon.co.uk Review
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, Amazon.com
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Folly Of The War On Rhetoric June 21, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Useful new things to be said about the debacle in Iraq are in very short supply. I'm not sure that's what "Lions for Lambs" intends to demonstrate, but it does, exhaustingly. Essentially, if I have this right, we should never have invaded Iraq, but now that we're there, (1) we can't very well leave, and (2) we can't very well stay, so (3) the answer is, stay while in the process of leaving." Roger Ebert
'All The Right Moves', and 'All The Right Words': apathy and cynicism, self interest is to have the best life you can have the easiest way, risk , bravery, say what you mean and mean what you say, don't live over a safety net, well reasoned arguments and journalist integrity, making the right choices or don't make any at all, and people who have the least to give, give the most. We have all heard these words and phrases time and again, and in this film we hear them in spades. Aha, I gave my own!
Robert Redford started out with a smart script. He was able to recruit the best of the best, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and himself. The time seemed ripe, we have a far off war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have an administration who fooled us all, we have the media who went along with the administration, and we have the American Public full of apathy all. What's not to like? Somewhere, something went wrong in this film. The public was not prepared for 94 minutes of moralizing and facing the music so to speak. We would prefer to move on with our lives, taking the easy way out, why not? What the film forgot was that we pay to be entertained, this was not entertainment, this was a lecture and we didn't want any of it. Too bad.
"Lions for Lambs is so square it's like something out of the gray twilight glow of the golden age of television. Even the military plot, which clunks, seems to be taking place on stage. Yet Carnahan's writing ignites familiar issues with vigor and snap; there's audacity in its attempt to seize us with nothing but a war of rhetoric. Maybe Lions for Lambs wouldn't seem like such a folly in a movie culture that risked making more follies like it." Owen Glieberman
A film that speaks to us all, but all of us don't want to hear.
Recommended. prisrob 05-14-08
The Electric Horseman
The French Lieutenant's Woman
A Few Good Men (Special Edition)
 Superb June 16, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I was amazed at how short this film was. It concerns an hour in the lives of several different people and runs for only 20 minutes longer than this.
In this hour you see some of the best performances from top Hollywood stars for a long time. For me the best was Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep who are utterly convincing in their roles.
Based on other reviews I was not expecting much - often the best way to approach a film. I'm pleased to say it far exceeded my expectations and is a superb film I am happy to recommend.
very decent movie June 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
one of the better films of last year this is solid and enjoyable with a great performance from tom cruise who reminds us that he can act.worth a look
 Flawed but absorbing May 26, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I watched this on DVD last night and was still thinking about it when I woke up this morning. Not, I hasten to add, because any of the views it propounds were new to me, or staggeringly well-put, but because I am always interested in eavesdropping on America talking to itself about its own failures. This is a country that we Europeans don't really understand: it's a fantasy land, a dream, in many ways a delusion. But it's so powerful that to not be interested in how it is currently shaping its future leaders is foolish. Artists of Robert Redford's generation won't be around much longer, and the film's critique of today's more shallow celebrities -- and the media that promote them -- is sharply telling.
In the end, I felt the material might have worked better as a play structured around the two central duologues, but it really did hold my attention with very good performances and a new kind of call to arms for America's youth.
Earnest but uninvolving May 14, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
You know those movies that you watch, and find so compelling you say to people `you HAVE to see this movie...'? Well, this movie aims for this, but alas merely reaches the heights of `Yeah, it's worth watching...'.
The film revolves around 3 storylines, essentially taking place simultaneously, and in real time, but this structure is not religiously adhered to as there are also some flashbacks. In Washington, a senior Senator rumoured to be a potential Presidential candidate, invites a respected journalist from a major TV news network, to give her an exclusive on the latest tactics being used in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, that push is shown through the eyes of two soldiers in the Special Forces, as the mission goes wrong and they are stuck behind enemy lines. The final strand is in a University, as the professor Robert Redford talks to a student full of potential but with more than enough cynicism and apathy to go with it. He shares his experience with the story of the two Special Forces soldiers, who were students of his and left to `go make a difference'.
It's a movie brimming with talent to be sure, with Robert Redford directing and Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep acting their socks off.. Cruise does give a compellingly convincing portrayal of a senior politician, convinced of his moral high ground but using it to further his career as much or if not more than doing the right thing. Streep also gives a performance which at times seems just a little too self consciously rounded, when something stripped down to basics would have done just as well. Her tics and mannerisms would have been better served in a movie which focused on her character. Redford is.. well, simply Redford.
The script, when we hear the characters debating with each other (which is most of the movie - don't go expecting an action flick whatever you do..) is intelligent and gets across its message clearly enough. Engagement is needed - apathy is a recipe for disaster, whether it be apathy on an individuals part or on the part of the media. Clumsy parallels to Vietnam are made. However, we don't have time to warm to any of the characters, neither are arcs to the characters developed, such that the movie ultimately feels like a lecture - something that a documentary could have done as well - or even better, using actual facts instead of drama.
Worth watching for some good performances and literate script, but should have been much more. How did such interesting talent combine to make such a mediocre product - is making a statement on war so much at odds with good film-making these days?
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