Tagline: If you don’t stand for something, you might fall for anything.
Lions for Lambs consists of three interconnected storylines: Tom Cruise as a congressman who interacts with a journalist (Meryl Streep); Robert Redford as an idealistic professor who attempts to inspire a privileged student in his class; and a third storyline about a pair of American soldiers wounded in enemy territory, one of whom is Redford’s former student.
The American government is taking a beating in the public opinion polls for losing the war on terror, despite the President earlier having made the statement that that war had been won, and for its earlier decisions to wage war on Iraq based on “faulty” intelligence while almost totally disregarding the upsurge of an enemy regime in Afghanistan.
Reporter Janine Roth, who works for an organization which used to be a true news organization but that was bought out by corporate interests whose financial bottom line is paramount, is planning on using this premise as the core of her upcoming hour long exclusive interview with Republican Senator and Presidential hopeful Jasper Irving. Irving convinces Roth to change the focus of her story to one of breaking news: that the government is taking a new offensive in Afghanistan based on enemy regimes in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan banding together against American forces.
This strategy is of Irving’s design, as is the want to have Roth be his pro-strategy conduit to the American public. As Roth conducts her interview with Irving, which is more of a debate on the issues, the offensive to which Irving refers has just begun. Two American soldiers, Ernest Rodriguez and Arian Finch, who were friends in university before their enlistment, are caught in a precarious and tenuous situation concerning this offensive.
Meanwhile, political science professor Dr. Stephen Malley, who used to teach Rodriguez and Finch, is having an early morning meeting with one of his current students, Todd Hayes. Hayes is a naturally bright student, but has fallen into a state of political social apathy as witnessed by his class attendance record. Malley, using Rodriguez and Finch’s situation in his class and following their tenure as students, tries to convince Hayes that he should do something meaningful with his life.
Robert Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise star in “Lions for Lambs,” a powerful and gripping story that digs behind the news, the politics and a nation divided to explore the human consequences of a complicated war. Directed by Academy Award winner Robert Redford, the story begins after two determined students at a West Coast University, Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Pena), follow the inspiration of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley (Redford), and attempt to do important with their lives.
Lions for Lambs (2007)
Directed by: Robert Redford
Starring: Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Andrew Garfield, Kevin Dunn, Peter Berg, Derek Luke, Larry Bates, Kristy Wu, Christopher May, Talia Montgomery, Lucia Tarantino
Screenplay by: M. Michael Carnahan
Production Design by: Jan Roelfs
Cinematography by: Philippe Rousselot
Film Editing by: Joe Hutshing
Costume Design by: Mary Zophres
Set Decoration by: Leslie Pope
Art Direction by: François Audouy, Steve Hardie
Music by: Mark Isham
MPAA Rating: R for some war violence and language.
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release Date: November 9, 2007
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