"...his smile jumps straight from a toothpaste commercial."
“Lions for
Lambs” is nearly inert. Robert Redford has directed this movie about the
politics of war as an extended conversation about America’s role in Iraq. While
it won’t set the Box Office on fire, the film is likely to provoke thought and
talk among those who already care. As three fictional characters who care a lot,
Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise have varying degrees of success in their
roles.
Tom Cruise
plays Senator Jasper Irving, a poster boy presidential candidate whose every
move is made to enhance his march to the White House. His suit coat and shirt
are cut tight to his muscles, his smile jumps straight from a toothpaste
commercial, and his new plan for winning the war is designed to pop him front
and center on the nightly news.
How to
present his plan with the biggest splash? Call in a respected journalist,
flatter her with a one hour interview, and spin the story you want her to write.
He summons Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) and lays out his war plan in detail. With
her name on the exclusive, Irving will own the news that night. But Janine is
not one for dutiful gratitude and knows she is being used as a P.R. conduit.
Jasper’s manipulation has pricked her conscience.
Of the three
stories that make up the movie, Jasper and Janine are strand #1. Strand #2 takes
place in the academic office of Dr. Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) where the
professor is trying to re-engage a bright but recalcitrant student. Professor
Malley is comfortably informal to the point of becoming a sedative. Strand #3
involves two of Professor Malley’s former students who became so engaged with
the world under his encouragement that they find themselves in Afghanistan as
infantrymen in the first stage of the Senator Irving’s plan to win the war.
The
connective tissue of the three stories is flimsy – really flimsy. Each one could
stand on its own, but for some reason, writer Matthew Michael Carnahan couldn’t
resist the temptation to tie them together. Struggling to make this weak
structure work, Tom Cruise overplays his ambitious senator, becoming nearly a
caricature – forget I said that….Aren’t all candidates caricatures?
Robert
Redford, it seems, is also struggling – but in the opposite direction. This is
an actor who refuses to overplay any part. He manages to express his political
views from a professor’s chair where he can discuss his beliefs and influence
students in the understated manner he favors.
Only Meryl
Streep – are we surprised? – creates a real character. With small gestures and
expressions, she builds a committed journalist – thoughtful and reflective, in
contrast to Cruise’s flamboyant candidate. Her final decision on how to handle
the story she has been fed is built on a base of subtleties she has been
building throughout the interview. Not too much, not too little, right on key.
Streep almost saves a bad day.
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