Robert Redford's latest film, Lions for Lambs,"" is so desperate in its attempts at relevance and profundity that when it fails to evoke the desired inspiration in American politics, the failure is as glaringly obvious as it is unsurprising.
The movie attempts to weave several different plotlines together surrounding the current War on Terror. Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) is a journalist gathering information for a story on a new tactic the White House is using to fight Al Queda from a young and ambitious GOP Senator, Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise). Arian Finch (Derek Luke) and Ernest Rodriguez (Michael Pena) are two best friends who enter the armed forces together to prove a point about something (though it's unclear exactly what that something is). And of course, there is the ""inspirational"" professor of political science Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) , who attempts to preach the cynicism out of his class-cutting pupil Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield).
It's clear from the film's tagline alone (""If you don't stand for something, you might fall for anything"") that the movie is doomed to overt righteousness, but unfortunately, that's not the only thing wrong with it. There's also the fact that it's entirely predictable, has two-dimensional characters, never even proves what you'll ""fall for"" and stars Tom Cruise.
The most agonizing plotline is Malley's meeting with Hayes. The professor, who is affectionately referred to as ""Doc"" by his quirky pupil, refuses to believe that Hayes is simply cutting class because of his new girlfriend and fraternity obligations. And he's right, naturally: Hayes turns out to be skipping class because he is fed up with American politics and is vehemently pessimistic about his ability to change things. This revelation provokes a pointless debate between the two characters over whether caring is worth it, during which ""Doc"" shows how much he believes in his young student.
Also difficult to watch is the back-and-forth between Roth and Sen. Irving. The contrast between Streep's skills as Roth (the actress does an unbelievably good job in a role that's basically written to entail simplistic moral crusading, like the rest of the characters) and Cruise's miscast attempt at Jasper is so vast that watching the duo's scenes together is like watching a mother attempt to read ""Ulysses"" to a 4-year-old stuffing crayons up his nose. Cruise does make Jasper seem creepy, which seems to be part of the senator's character, but it's mostly Cruise's own scariness shining through.
Finch and Rodriguez's bond, despite being as woefully unoriginal as the rest of the film, is at least touching at points. Yet their time on screen is so undermined by clichés that it fails to really float any higher than the rest of the scenes in the movie. A flashback to a presentation the two friends gave in - surprise, surprise - one of Professor Malley's political science classes shows a audience populated with students so sardonic and confrontational it feels like the actors playing them were written into the script as ""Asshole No. 1"" and ""Asshole No. 2.""
The ultimate reason ""Lions for Lambs"" feels so wrong is that the stories it tells are rip-offs of current events and characters that are much more interesting. The actual tales told by Iraq veterans are more disturbing and the characters of actual senators more misguided than anything Redford has come up with.
