Hollywood's Fall Offensive, Part III: "Lions for Lambs"
Tom Miller
Nov 15, 2007
Two words: Liberal Gabfest
One word: B-O-R-I-N-G
I knew that Hollywood's left-liberals - and their chattering allies in the media and the universities - were pretentious and whiny, but who knew they could be so breathtakingly boring?
This movie is so boring that it left me thinking conspiracy. I usually reject conspiracy theories out of hand. People are naturally gabby, and conspiracies demand silence. Universal silence. How likely is that?
Anyway, after the first four hours of this interminable liberal gabfest, it occurred to me that veteran Tinseltown liberal Robert Redford, who directs "Lions for Lambs" with a wooden hand and a tin ear, is too smart for this. He's got to know that the story is banal, the characters are pretentious, the dialogue is preachy, and the tone is whiny.
Why would a left-liberal like Redford wrap his message - the war on terror is at best a disaster, at worst a diabolical trick played on an unsuspecting nation; the media have sold out to corporate America and are no longer interested in "real" journalism, i.e. the kind that would expose the diabolical trick; and America is in decline and beginning to resemble a third-world country - in such a dreadful package? By the end, no one will remember the message, only the medium.
That's what got me to thinking about conspiracy. Maybe Redford's not a liberal after all and this is his revenge for all those years of having to pretend.
The plot, such as it is, has three tenuously-connected threads that play out at the same time. In Washington, D.C., ambitious young Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) invites veteran reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) to his office for an exclusive interview about his latest idea on how to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan.
While they spar, the initial military operation based on Irving's plan unfolds in the isolated mountains of Afghanistan where a special operations platoon is preparing to establish a forward operating point. The platoon includes Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Pena) and Arian Finch (Derek Luke), two young soldiers who studied political science at an elite California college under Prof. Stephen Malley (Redford directing himself).
Out in California, thread number three unravels - nothing here unfolds - as Prof. Malley meets with Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield), a bright but cynical student. While Malley disapproves of Rodriguez and Finch's decision to join the Army, he derides Hayes for being a slacker. "Rome is burning," he implores Hayes, while you are fiddling around. Yeah, he really says that. And, a bunch of stuff that's equally silly. (Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan's mother must be proud.)
Senator Irving is a liberal strawman: a slick, callous neo-con itching for a fight. Reporter Roth is a thoughtful, caring liberal who sees useless sacrifice where Irving sees danger. Her reference point is not 9/11, but Vietnam. Isn't this, she asks Irving of his concept of establishing small forward operating points to deny the enemy territory, the same strategy Abrams tried unsuccessfully in Vietnam in '68? And, she continues, what would you know anyway since you served in military intelligence, not the infantry?
(Memo to Hollywood: This isn't World War II or even Vietnam - as much as you'd like it to be. In the War on Terror, there are no front lines and lots of non-infantry troops engage and are engaged by the enemy. In fact, the first Medal of Honor winner from this war was SFC Paul Ray Smith, an engineer.)
Prof. Malley's America is a decaying, deceitful, and shameful place. When he says "Rome is burning," he's serious. He says this, of course, while lounging in a sunny office at a tony university drinking a Starbucks latte. And, without a hint of irony.
The only redeeming characters in all of this are Rodriguez and Finch, who follow their conscience into the Army. They come to a bad end, of course, but director Redford at least allows them to die honorably.
"Lions for Lambs" is the third salvo in Hollywood's fall offensive against the Global War on Terror and the heroes fighting it, and it's no less intellectually dishonest than its predecessors. "In the Valley of Elah" and "Rendition" were at least interesting films. "Lions for Lambs" is not.
It is six hours of vapid talk and ten minutes of action. It makes liberals look worse than pretentious. It makes them look b-o-r-i-n-g.
(Disclaimer: The movie runs 92 minutes. It only seems like six hours and ten minutes.)
Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion
Copyright 2008 by Tom Miller
