Lions For Lambs Parent Guide

At a large California university, Dr. Malley (Robert Redford) has taken an interest in one of his students: Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield), a bright young man who has all but stopped attending class. Attempting to find out why Todd’s attendance has deteriorated, Dr. Malley quickly takes an opportunity to motivate his pupil by relating a story about two of his erstwhile students: Arian Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Peña), who believed so strongly in their ideals that they enlisted in the Army. Meanwhile, the Republican senator for Illinois, Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) has brought reporter Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) in to try and sell her on a new plan for military victory in Afghanistan – a plan which involves both Arian and Ernest.

Making overtly political movies is a tricky business. Typically, such films tend to either lean to one side of the political spectrum (which makes them more narratively cohesive and simple), at the expense of alienating viewers of other opinions. Lions for Lambs tries to be a little more centrist in nature, but this only serves to muddle any concrete message the filmmakers may have intended in the first place. I’m not saying that every movie about war and philosophy has to have a clear partisan agenda, but a clearer opinion would be nice.

Which is really a shame, because it has an outstanding cast. Robert Redford is, as always, a captivating presence, a feat even more impressive because he has to compete for screen time with Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise. If that weren’t enough, Andrew Garfield and Michael Peña ought to keep you focused on the story. With so many big names wandering about the screen, you might expect that the movie could overcome some narrative vagueness on personality alone. You wouldn’t be entirely mistaken, either, but it’s just not enough.

But at the end of the day, the film mostly just feels like a mashed up polemic with no real agenda. It isn’t terrible, but it also isn’t nearly as strong as it might have been. It’s also largely unsuitable for a family audience, thanks to its profanity and brief moments of violence. In its defense, Lambs for Lions has a good deal less profanity than many films which focus on the military, but even that is more than you might want to listen to with your grandmother. If you can look past the preachy writing and odd pacing, then the strong character acting is worth watching, and to its credit, the film does raise legitimate questions about the roles of media, government, and the citizenry – it just fails to give clear answers.