Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

(2013-05-08 16:58:02)

Two Years Later it is now a PROPHECY

This is one of the strangest film we can imagine about the end ofDubya's war on terror, alas not the end of the war per se. It is allcentered on Afghanistan but it is essentially conveyed in the paranoidfear of human beings. Like the Christian God, this story is based onthree characters, three story tellers, three episodes that overlap andcrisscross from one to the other constantly. On one side a universityprofessor who was drafted into the Vietnam war and has not yet reallyunderstood what happened then. He has negotiated a hypocritical peacewith life that makes him take his anger and frustration onto thestudents themselves in order to confront them to decision making at anytime in their life as students when this life has become boring andsenseless. They know it is not going to be better than their parent'sthough the latter have promised them it would. And anyway, and that iswhat these students have forgotten, it cannot be the same, let alonebetter because they are just starting in life and nothing in life isgiven ready made and ready to eat. You have to fight for it, like it ornot, and that the dear professor has forgotten it in his own mind, evenif the students have forgotten it in their real life. The professormakes the students fight but for the sake of it not for any commitment,even purely selfish. The professor does not do his job since he doesnot teach them how to start from zero, as life requires it for 95% ofpeople, and then have an objective other than satisfying the wants,desires or phantasms of the professor. He is not even a signpost alongthe road that never follows the road it is indicating, but he is asignpost in the middle of the desert pointing in any erratic directionaccording to the moment and the professor's impulses. The journalist ina big newspaper is confronted with the necessity, or even the duty, totell the public that everyone is lying to them and they believe them.But she runs out of steam to convince other people, out of steam toreally corner the senator who receives her, out of steam to convinceher own boss about that necessity instead of treating everything asnews when it is only propaganda. She too is sort of out of phase andshe will either yield or retire. She is incapable of doing her job forher boss who takes the assignment away, her job being to bring news tothe public. But she is also incapable to do what she thinks her job is,that is to say bring people to reflecting and having a wider vision onthings, a vision that could integrate the past into the future and viceversa, in other words be responsible and visionary. The senator is ayoung wolf who is ready to win the war whatever the cost it may takebecause that's what politicians need, a win. Instead of drawing theconclusion from the failure that the mistakes are too heavy for life toforgive and forget them and that politicians have to stop thesemistakes, they want more war and they look for the person who is goingto be able to carry the message to the people and make people swallowthe hard medicine instead of changing it altogether. In that trilogy –or should I say trinity? – of lost grown-ups, the film shows a fewyoung students and how they react to this fake life, and it is not atall encouraging. These students are lost. Whether they want to committhemselves and their life to the big battle against terrorism but theyare betrayed by a bunch of incompetent officers and politicians whowill announce their death as a victory. Or they want to stay out of itand enjoy life and that makes them drop-outs for one and flunkies fortwo. No hope there, hence a deep sense of despair. The dice have beencast and no one can decipher the message written among the dots andfigures. Two years later what can we think about it? It will take a lotof energy – and hope – on the side of politicians to change their ways.It will take a lot of energy for the people to understand enjoying lifecannot be the objective of life itself. It will take a lot of energyfor the media to understand that their job is not to transmit the pressreleases of politicians but to educate and enlighten the public intothinking with their own heads. It will take a lot of energy, though Iam afraid this battle is far from even having begun, for professors andteachers, educators and intellectuals to get down into the world andcommit themselves to real life, which would mean more work and lessease for them, the poor darlings, my heart is bleeding for them. Todefend their privileges, these professors and company are ready tobreak the life of their students as students and then as grown-ups andeven as citizens, and they will argue that the students agree. There isalways one rotten apple in a barrel of apples, as old seafarers wellknow.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, UniversityVersailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID

scorpiodare

(2013-05-08 05:49:32)

Finally a wait is over!

Definitely, a movie based on such script's should be more, rather thanhiding the cruel & sharp reality into the darkness. As more & morepeople fall prey to this, it becomes a issue of social awareness, aspeople tend to avoid doing or going to the path that leads to humandestruction. With a great combination of actors, we feel sure themessage spread is well achieved. Each life is important for aindividual, & to make it more worth all humans, have to set aside agoal, apart from becoming something, of doing something great for theworld, for the mankind, & this indeed in itself is a great inspirationif not motivation for a individual. This movie should work for itssurvival, not based on talks or media glamor, but also for its powerfulyet gripping content, which we all are sure it would, from its givencredits.

jgale2002

(2013-04-30 01:29:44)

Absolute Garbage

Rented this at the video store and I could not stomach the film. Someof the worst performances I have ever seen and completely full ofclichés and miserable acting. I would expect more from Redford. Ithought the film had been made by Republican Party as an electioncampaign ad. It was the most jingoistic load of garbage one couldimagine and I support the war in Afganistan!! I only made it halfwaythrough and had enough of it. The film was so phony that Redford spenthalf the film drinking from an obviously empty Starbucks coffee cup.Streep, Cruise and Redford's performances were uniformly awful. Cruisewas not believable as the Hawkish Senator, and the interplay betweenRedford's professor and the smart ass know it all student stretched allcredibility to the breaking point.A complete waste of my time

Fernando F. Croce

(2013-04-29 06:06:26)

Pitched with utter sincerity and rigorously filmed sans complexity, energy, life

gdane1508

(2013-04-20 15:47:24)

So what's new?

I was actually really looking forward to watching this movie, but wasfairly disappointed with the story. I know that Redford wants to showhow things might be like in the real world, but here's the thing : WEKNOW!!! I mean, if you follow politics a little you know about thelobbying, the problems that the press imposes and that everythingbasically boils up to getting reelected, not to mention that you can'treduce everything to right or wrong.It seems to me like this was an attempt to educate people that doesn'thave a clue what's going on with the US. The acting was good though-too bad that the story didn't dig deeper, and just scraped the surfaceof the problems of terrorism and idiocy in politics.

vitaleralphlouis

(2013-04-20 05:49:09)

Robert Redford ** Fidel Castro ** Hugo Chaviz

Sure to be the Most Talked About Movie of 2007 --- Quote, unquote; butnot in the same way they intended.LIONS FOR LAMBS limps into a lame and lackluster 4th place in itsopening box office, 80% less than THE BEE MOVIE, 75% less than AmericanGANGSTER, 50% less than FRED CLAUS. The great answer to today'sheadlines -- according to Hollywood's radical left -- brings on theirpredicted blockbuster, with the much-hyped triple star-power ofRedford, Streeo and Cruise. WOW! And what do they get? Rejection. Themovie is being talked about on TV in context of the box office failureof the recent crop of wacky-left movies.Robert Redford's idea of a great president is Fidel Castro, killer ofmany, who successfully led Cuba into poverty, failure, gloom. Hisalternate, since Fidel is too old, would be Venezuela's Chavez --- yetRedford still lives in America, where, incidentally, his star statusdied as his face wrinkled and his recent movies pass rapidly to DVD.What we get for our $10.50 from former Jane Fonda co-star is a rehashof 2005's awful Oscar winner CRASH, interrelated stories with heavyhanded preaching to the audience. So we have persons with no positivevalues, no love for America, no ideas in any way in tune withmainstream America --- these empty-heads are rattling off in a two hourboring talk-fest to an essentially empty multiplex auditorium.At least with a multiplex, once you know you're in for a dud justquietly move on to another movie.

rz_rahman

(2013-04-16 06:49:47)

A good film with a good message

I found this to be very good and engaging film. The first good thingthat I liked is that it's very clear about what it wants to say. Thatis a very important point. Many political films get lost in trying toappease everyone and therefore appear unsure and shaky. Most people have a problem with how the other two threads, that isapart from the Meryl Streep/Tom Cruise story, play out. I found themrather real and good. I think, through them, Robert Redford has managedquite well to highlight the role of the four most important sidesplaying their part, unwittingly or otherwise, in America's latest wars:the politicians, the media, the soldiers and of course the general (inmany cases apathetic) population.The editing of the stories is just about perfect. Whenever one beginsto get too tense or dull, too pointed or boring, we are taken to theother thread. Therefore, I actually think that is quite a fast pacedfilm by Robert Redford's standards.The acting is very good with Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise beingbrilliant. Tom Cruise holds his own against Meryl and not for a momentdoes one feel that she is overshadowing him. Michael Pena, AndewGarfield and Derek Luke are all wonderful. The film says a lot of things, but it seems that people have a generalaversion to message oriented films. However, still, the overall ratingis 6.2 which shows that many many people enjoyed this film, otherwiseit wouldn't be so high given the fact that those who hated it areprobably giving it a 1 or 2.

(2013-04-15 20:10:17)

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.

Matt Brunson

(2013-04-14 11:22:40)

Say this for Hollywood: At least it's trying to inject some semblance of sane debate into the Iraq War debacle ... But do its recruitment tools have to be so ineffectual?

(2013-04-13 19:46:38)

Boring

Dragged on and just made me want to go to sleep. A waste of a great cast.

collipal-1

(2013-04-09 15:26:04)

It had an interesting message and a good intention but it does not totally satisfies

Lions for Lambs has a good intention:making the analysis of the politicsituation of the USA after the September 11th.That message has beenexposed by films like Rendition or the brilliant Syriana.But Lions forLambs takes another focus of that subject and I appreciatethat.Also,the film brings an interesting and good message.But,Lions forLambs is a movie which did not totally satisfy me.Let's see why.Firstof all,Lions for Lambs is an incomplete movie.It finishes very suddenlyand I stayed like saying:''So?Is that all?''.I also have to mentionthat the dialogue between the professor and his student is tedious.Theperformances which stand out are the ones from Tom Cruise and DerekLuke.Cruise is a good actor when he has the right material(as we cansee in -for example- Magnolia or Interview with the Vampire)and he'svery good in here.Luke is also good and natural in his role.For onesight,Lions for Lambs brings an interesting message,good intentions andgood performances.But,for the other sight,it's incomplete,a little bitboring and too slow.Nevertheless,I would slightly recommend it.

mddoc2020

(2013-04-09 01:25:34)

Tripe with a saving grace.

First let me say that the only saving grace of this movie was theperformances of the two soldiers. You could really believe and feeltheir enthusiasm and convictions of the parts they were playing. Fromthe classroom to the helicopter to the battlefield. Those two soldiersseemed to exude a realistic believable performance that reached theaudience. It was their performance that kept me from actually gettingup and leaving an otherwise tiresome movie. I see that Redford was thedirector. He seems to have faded in his later years. But if he wastrying to deliver a lukewarm plate of tripe salted with anti Americanundertones then he accomplished his job. He accomplished this tiresomeundertone with the help of Streep. Cruz is capable of delivering a goodperformance but under the direction of Redford he managed a great swandive onto his face. I got the general feeling that this movie was onpar with a late night shameful tiresome tirade of anti Americanrhetoric vomited out by Tim Robbins.

(2013-04-07 23:40:03)

Save Your Money; This Movie Is Terribly Boring

Save your money and don't see this film. It is terribly boring. MerylStreep does a pretty good job, as usual, with her acting but Tom Cruisetruly flops with his characterization. I'm sure United Artists had goodintentions with this film and usually I like controversial topics forplots but this movie is just plain boring. It drags and the dialogue isquite predictable. I just could not get into this movie at all. Sorry Ican't give it more than one star. I wanted to like it but this movieisn't up to Robert Redford's previous efforts. I am disappointed thatthe plot and film seemed to drift and go nowhere. Hard to sit thru anda sad, boring political saga with no true message.

(2013-04-07 10:42:40)

A single good point...

The first thing you'll notice about this film is how the reporter is blasting away with away with profound arguments whilst the senator replies blissfully with empty rhetoric. I don't know where they got this vision of military planning from, but it's woefully inaccurate. Of course, the senator was a bumbling, war-hungry buffoon who kept going on about winning the war with a "Love it or leave it" mantra that kept repeating itself.I won't go into military operation inaccuracies, but they are there, and there's plenty for even the casual observer to notice.I gave this movie two stars, because deep beneath the thunderous anti-war drums, behind the rosy red lens from which Hollywood (Robert Redford in particular) is able to understand military planning and global strategy with a deftness envied by all, and buried beneath a pile of propaganda that would make the most skilled spin doctor proud, is a singular lesson which makes some of this redeemable. You can't complain about the way things are if you are doing nothing to change it.

Bill Goodykoontz

(2013-04-03 23:50:54)

Robert Redford (who also directed), Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep might just as well have appeared on-screen for a couple of minutes with signs that said, 'War is bad,' and been done with it. Saves everyone the cost of a ticket.

MaryAnn Johanson

(2013-04-03 19:52:28)

[T]he most frank discussion yet about the war and the state of this country I've seen at the movies, one that tries to capture the situation realistically and intelligently and without indulging in dogmatic ideology.

marcelproust

(2013-03-30 15:29:05)

An intelligent and engaging drama

"Is it better to try and fail, or fail to try?" That's the challengingquestion put by liberal professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) togifted but lazy student Todd (Andrew Garfield). It also underpins muchof the debate in Lions for Lambs, Redford's talky but effective look atAmerica and Americans' response to the war on terror. Malley wants Todd to rise above the cynical and dismissive attitude ofhis generation and engage with the world. To illustrate this he tellsthe story of two students who took that message to heart and joined theMarines - and we watch as the two recruits get caught up in a terriblesituation in the icy mountains of Afghanistan.In a separate storyline, journalist Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) andup-and-coming GOP star Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) meet for thesenator to unveil (albeit only piecemeal) his plans to escalate theAfghan campaign (and his own presidential ambitions) in an ill-thought-out military intervention. Irving plays masterfully on themedia's complicity with enabling the current Iraq War and also onRoth's (and the audience's) innate fear of another 9/11.If that all sounds a little preachy, well it is. WIth most scenesconsisting of two people in a room talking to one another, and everyonefrom Socrates to von Clausewitz getting a name- check, many people maybe turned off - and this unwillingness to engage in debate is,ironically, one of the film's major themes. But I found it refreshingto hear a lot of these views (from both sides of the politicalspectrum) get an airing on such a high-profile platform as a majorHollywood movie.And the cast doesn't come much more high-profile than this. While Ifound Meryl Streep's earnest TV reporter a little unconvincing andRedford's professor too perfect they both turn in solid performances,with Streep especially making the dialogue seem utterly fresh andspontaneous. The acting honours undoubtedly go to Cruise - always athis best when playing someone with something to hide. His SenatorIrving has the magnetic smile, twinkling eyes and "trust me" demeanourthat is bred into the bones of all major US politicos. But there aremoments where that facade cracks just enough to show the "love it orleave it" jingoism that lurks beneath the smooth surface. Cruise isnothing less that spectacular - could this be the role that finallygets him the little statuette?I hope, however, that when envelope season begins in Hollywood there isroom for Andrew Garfield's name. A US-born but British-trained talent,this magnetic young actor has star quality is spades - quite acompliment when you look at the company he's keeping. (Watch hiswonderfully expressive eyes when he's talking to Redford - there's areal, thinking person in there.) His character manages to be charming,intelligent, self-deceiving, confused and scared - a lot like the restof his generation. If Lions for Lambs doesn't succeed on every level, it does pack anintellectual and emotional punch - and isn't it better to try and failthan fail to try?

Brent Simon

(2013-03-30 00:29:28)

To borrow a song title from the more cinematically fortunate Johnny Cash, this one is a "Ragged Old Flag."

oldgal67

(2013-03-24 22:38:45)

Missed on two counts

Although the film was interesting, well-acted and covered a lot of theproblems besetting modern nations, it missed on two linked andimportant points both relating to motherhood. As long as a film such as this doesn't include any reference to themothers of the young people killed in wars, then one assumesAmerican/Western men are living as much in the dark ages as they everwere. The grief-stricken weeping of the millions of mothers who havelost their beloved sons to wars over the millennia must, by now, beaudible at the farthest reaches of the universe and yet we nevermention this appalling, continuing and totally unnecessary grief.That's one point. The second is that as long as it is possible for a man like Redford,whose work is generally admirable, to include that other appallingaspersion on motherhood – motherf***** – in his film, we must assume heand everyone else involved in the film have no respect for the womenwho bore them. If they only use that revolting term in reference toother people's mothers, that is, if anything, worse. If it is a generalterm applied to all mothers, what exactly does that say about Westernmen? We persist in poking our noses into other people's business whenit comes to the treatment of women; maybe we should clean up our actfirst – stop abusing all mothers and start to recognize just howenormous the sacrifice is that has been foisted on them for thousandsof years.It's time to stop going on quite so much about the sacrifice made bythe young and adventurous – which is huge – and start thinking aboutthe even greater sacrifice made by their mothers. I don't include thefathers as it is their responsibility to stop wars and, to date,they're not making a sufficiently effective effort.

Harrismh

(2013-03-24 12:33:58)

tedious at best and mind numbing at worst

Lions For Lambs is a dialog, a debate really, about the "affairs ofstate" in Washington D.C. and the "state of affairs" in the PersianGulf region. It's 10 AM D.C. time and Janine, a local newspaper (readWashington Post) reporter, steps into the office of GOP Senator Irvingfor a one-on-one and on-the-record discussion about a plan to win thewar in Afghanistan (read Iraq). The conversation starts, with thesenator representing the conservative right and the media ladyrepresenting the liberal left. The scene changes to a West Coastuniversity (read UC Berkley); it's an early 7 AM and Todd arrives inthe office of Dr. Malley for a career focused discussion---Todd hasbeen skipping class. The conversation starts with the professor,advocating high ideals he encourages Todd to stand for something, makea commitment and take action. Todd, disengaged, turned off anddisaffected with the world pushes back at the good professor sayinghe's not going to get involved in this mess--read average U.S. citizen.It's midnight, or thereabouts, in Afghanistan and a team of airbornetroops are to occupy a frozen hilltop; Ernst and Arian run into troubleand spend the night alone. Back to Washington.Lions For Lambs is tedious at best and mind numbing at worst, unlessyou've just arrived from another planet and never tuned in the Americanmedia circus. This film is the political equivalent of Groundhog Day(1992) where newscaster Bill Murray is forced to live the same day overand over again covering this minor holiday in Punxsutawney PA. In thisfilm, the water torture (repetition) is the replay of all the Sundaymorning political talk show babble (pro and con) from the last 4-years.Just in cast you think your side wins this one don't bet on it, thereare no winners here. A partisan in front of me clapped and hooted whenthe conservative took it in the shorts the first time, only to fine hisliberal view was skewered next, before he could catch his breath. Andso the conversation goes.Lions For Lambs is being highly touted by the press, who don't want toblow a ticket to the Academy Awards next year. The tragedy here is thatwe've got three fine actors without a story; it's neither goodentertainment nor serious political science. Each player reads his /her lines (literally yesterday's newscast), there's no story line andno emotion to engage viewers. The closest thing to artistic techniqueis the scene continually rotates between D.C., California and themountaintop. I'm thinking this may be as good (read bad) as The BlairWitch Project (1999), and win my 2007 Stinker award.