Talking It Out

by Philbert Ortiz Dy
posted on Saturday, November 10, 2007 in Movie Reviews

Lions For Lambs plays out like a series of debates, with a few military scenes to break up the talking. And if one is so inclined, the debates themselves can be pretty interesting. The question is whether that actually makes for good cinema.

Lions for Lambs tells three loosely linked stories. In Afghanistan, an army operation goes horribly wrong, stranding two soldiers on a snowy mountaintop, surrounded by terrorists. In Washington, a veteran reporter is offered a story by a charismatic young Republican senator. In California, a professor attempts to reach out to a gifted by cynical student.

What follows is basically a series of discussions about the war on terror. It discusses the role everybody in America has played in getting the country in the mess that it’s currently in. It’s a pretty fascinating and surprisingly balanced take on all the pressing issues of the day. It can be pretty compelling stuff if one is interested in that sort of thing.

But one realized that people don’t usually go into the cinema to watch a bunch of debates. It feels like the film could have portrayed the same ideas without having to resort to talking heads. There are stories being told here, but they all seem to play second fiddle to the arguments.

That becomes a problem in a cinematic sense. Filming two people talk just doesn’t make for a very breathtaking experience. The camera does all it can, but in the end, it’s still just two people talking. The plot in Afghanistan provides for some interesting cinematography, but even that is mostly just scenes of two people talking.

The cast does an admirable job. They do all they can to make the arguments interesting, trying to infuse as much character as they can into the debates. It mostly works. Robert Redford and company do a fine job of keeping the audience’s attention even when deep into rhetoric. But that’s what it all boils down to: rhetoric. Entertaining and genuinely interesting rhetoric, to be fair, but still just talk.

By the end of the film, Lions for Lambs sends a very clear message, and it’s a very nice sentiment that deserves to be given much thought. One just wonders if it could have been in a different way.

My Rating:
Do you agree with this rating? Submit your own.
Read User Reviews

I'm looking for Lions For Lambs.