"Lions for Lambs" review
I've been trying to get it up for a Lions for Lambs review for several days now, and it just wouldn't happen. The truth is that I don't like three second-tier things about Robert Redford's new film -- the photography, the Aghanistan mountain-range combat sequence, and the use of generic title cards -- and I was trying to articulate what I feel about the first-tier aspects so as not to seem trivial. But sometimes the trivial things aren't trivial but proverbial "blades of grass."
The truth is that I admire Redford's audacity in having made such a starkly didactic film. You can't not call it ballsy, although it's hard not to call Lions for Lambs generally underwhelming. This is a film, after all, that is shorn of tension and visual fluidity in the service of educational "talk". It is marginally involving, but never once alarming. much less gripping. Everyone had to know that the chances of such a film dropping dead on its opening weekend were pretty high, even with Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep topping the cast.
BEWARE: A PLOT SPOILER AWAITS FOUR GRAPHS HENCE.
The subject, as Redford's college professor character puts it, is that "Rome is burning." For 88 minutes the film cuts back and forth between three illustrations of this situation. One, journalists not rigorously questioning the right-wing propaganda about the manifest destiny that is driving the war on terrorism. Two, college kids not giving a shit about the enveloping tragedy of that conflict. And three, the certainty that soldiers trying to fight it out in Afghanistan are going to die in order to validate some vague neocon dream of victory.
I certainly don't disagree with what it's saying, and I didn't hate watching it. But I was irritated by three things.
One, Philippe Rousselot's photography is so flat, drab and lacking in visual intrigue during the scene between Redford and Andrew Garfield that it borders on irritating. It's so lacking in invention that it becomes hard to concentrate on what's being said. If I were Redford I would have either made Lions for Lambs super-attractive by shooting it the way Vittorio Storaro shot Reds or The Sheltering Sky (which would obviously remove the visual irritation factor, which would allow the viewer to pay closer attention) or I would have taken the super-raw, no-frills approach that Oleg Mutu chose for 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days.
The Sheltering Sky
Two (and here comes the SLIGHT SPOILER! ), it's hard to believe that a solder could fall from a helicopter onto rocky, snow-covered terrain on top of a mountain and just get slightly banged up. (Production designer Anton Furst killed himself by jumping off the top of a five-story parking structure.) It's harder to believe that the fallen soldier's best friend in the chopper, having seen him tumble out, would simply jump out of the chopper himself and hope for the best. The only way we could buy this would be if Redford showed us that the chopper is hovering, say, 20 or 30 feet above the mountain peak, but he doesn't. On top of which enemy Afghan soldiers are shown approaching the position of these two soldiers from less than a hundred feet away, and for no discernable reason they take an awfully long time -- a good half-hour -- to attack.
Three, white titles explaining anything are bad enough, but there is no reason to call the university where Redford's professor teaches a generic "California university" -- it matters to absolutely no one if the school is in California or Rhode Island or Oregon or Wisconsin. And we certainly don't care if we know the name of Redford's character. It sounds like a small-ass thing to gripe about, but the second those titles flashed on-screen I tuned out and stayed that way for two or three minutes...until tuning out again because of Rousselot's photography. Why create road blocks that do nothing except get in the way?
All that said, here's a rave review from the New York Press's Armond White.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on November 9, 2007 at 12:38 PM
comment #1
bradb
says ...
I think the only reason it is dubbed a California University is to keep the time zone differences going (morning, noon, night). I do agree with you on them falling out of the chopper though.
Posted by bradb
at November 9, 2007 2:50 PM
comment #2
MiraJeffAICN
says ...
It's Andrew Garfield, not James, and while I thought Derek Luke jumping out of that chopper was AWESOME, I completely agree it would've been better served by a cut to the chopper hovering just above the ground, because as it plays now, it's completely implausible, especially when you consider that Luke falls from such a height that he literally gets stuck in the snow.
Posted by MiraJeffAICN
at November 9, 2007 2:51 PM
comment #3
mrmystery
says ...
The truth is that I admire Redford's audacity in having made such a starkly didactic film.
So Jeff, you must really really really admire those old East German movies honking off about how great Stalinism was... right?
AUDACIOUS MEIN HERR
Posted by mrmystery
at November 9, 2007 2:53 PM
comment #4
Monument
says ...
Maybe it's just me, but this movie has one of the worst trailers I've ever seen. It sucks when a movie trailer gives away the whole film in one shot, but this seems like the other end of the spectrum. The trailers I've seen on TV have told me nothing at all about this film. It seems like their trying to sell this one based on star power alone.
Posted by Monument
at November 9, 2007 3:05 PM
comment #5
Monument
says ...
...they're, rather
Posted by Monument
at November 9, 2007 3:06 PM
comment #6
bmcintire
says ...
There isn't that much else to sell. There are a lot of ideas and idealogies being tossed around, but more so than almost any other picture I can think of, there is no actual "there" there. I still enjoyed it more than I expected to, though.
Posted by bmcintire
at November 9, 2007 3:30 PM
comment #7
Karsten
says ...
Just returned from my local Norwegian cinema after seeing this film.
First; I truly admire the ambition this film has to wake up privileged young (and old) western mindsets. I'm quite cynical, and expected to be put off the film's all-too-good intentions (my expectations were pretty low.). But actually it really made me think, and especially I appreciated the ending in that regard.
BUT: I agree with Wells concerning the cinematography, continuity and banal disturbances in general. I wish this the thematic ambition of this film were backed up by dramatic and visual ambition as well.
Posted by Karsten
at November 9, 2007 3:59 PM
comment #8
Pablo Villaca
says ...
Andrew Garfield must be one of the most irritating, annoying and unsympathetic new actors around.
Posted by Pablo Villaca
at November 9, 2007 4:32 PM
comment #9
scooterzz
says ...
anthony lane referred to 'lfl' as 'ibsen with helicopters' and i totally agree....the only thing i like about this movie is that it's had bill o'reilly frothing at the mouth for over a week.....
Posted by scooterzz
at November 9, 2007 6:59 PM
comment #10
swhitty
says ...
Redford is a great guy with good intentions, but I thought this movie was a mess -- full of bad writing and illogical plotting (which Jeff touches on) wedded to pedantic speeches worth of Aaron Sorkin.
And that's from someone who probably agrees with Redford right down the line.
The basic problem, I think, was a 1967 mindset (and it's not accidental that Streep's character is said to have begun her career in the late '60, and Redford's was at the Chicago riots) trying to confront 2007 realities.
As a filmmaker, Redford, it seems, it trying to come at this from the current liberal "I support the troops/I don't support the war" line that many have taken. Which I think is problematic in some ways, but that's a whole other post (or blog).
But the movie then twists itself into further pretzels as it goes beyond that with its whole "If you don't stand for something/You might fall for anything" ethos. Which is cleverly 'ironic', but nonsensical.
Because clearly, the film's two soldiers stand for something -- they enlist. Except they fall for what the movie says is a lie -- "the war on terror."
So what exactly is the film's point? Should we cheer these guys for getting involved in the system? Or curse them for validating a corrupt system? Applaud them for committing, or rue that they committed to a pointless cause?
The movie doesn't know. And I don't know why we should care.
Posted by swhitty
at November 9, 2007 7:34 PM
comment #11
malibugigolo
says ...
Paul Bowles was the author the book The Sheltering Sky
If anyone is intertested in a GREAT adaptionion and sane transiotns check out Paul Bowles: Half Moon (that's the title at netflix title)
3 of his short stories directed by the German director Frieder Schlaich. Each story is 30 min. Talk about transitions. A truly undiscovered classic.
Posted by malibugigolo
at November 9, 2007 8:33 PM
comment #12
Ogami Itto
says ...
The best review I've read of the movie thus far is here: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/lionsforlambs.htm
This movie sounds terrible.
Posted by Ogami Itto
at November 9, 2007 9:53 PM
comment #13
Terry McCarty
says ...
Re Ogami Itto's post:
Walter Chaw doesn't really like much of anything (take that back slightly since he gave the Wes-Anderson-still-infatuated-with-cinematic-origami-creation THE DARJEELING LIMITED four stars).
Slight spoiler ahead:
But Redford and Carnahan score a bullseye with the sly gag about the CNN-clone network running the Afghanistan story as a bottom-screen crawl as a vapid-celeb story is given "Breaking News" status.
After my wife and I came home from seeing LFL in Northridge, we flipped through the cable channels and CNN ran an item about Burma/Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi as a bottom-screen crawl while LARRY KING LIVE did yet another episode about UFOs.
Posted by Terry McCarty
at November 9, 2007 11:40 PM
comment #14
Ogami Itto
says ...
"Walter Chaw doesn't really like much of anything (take that back slightly since he gave the Wes-Anderson-still-infatuated-with-cinematic-origami-creation THE DARJEELING LIMITED four stars."
It's true that he's very nitpicky (and cranky), but I see him as a counterbalance to all the hyperbolic raves some movies get and, in many cases, don't really deserve.
But when Chaw says a film like "No Country for Old Men" is a masterpiece, that perks up my ears and makes me want to see it even more.
Posted by Ogami Itto
at November 10, 2007 4:07 AM
comment #15
thatmovieguy
says ...
One nit-picky sort of thing that bothered me was that Redford and Garfield are supposed having this conference in California at 7 or 8 a.m. Show me any professor who has those kinds of office hours. I taught college for seven years and most academics (and students) seemed to think that 10 a.m. was practically the crack of dawn. And the helicopter situation was also ridiculous: Snow or no snow, they would have been dead on impact, or very shortly afterward. I thought the Streep/Cruise face-off would have made a terrific play (and they were both very good), but otherwise too much of the movie was a sermon aimed at the faithful. Anyone who is shocked by anything in it hasn't listened to the news or visited the internet in the last two years. I give Redford credit for making the statement, but it's a shame the film isn't stronger.
Posted by thatmovieguy
at November 10, 2007 6:39 AM