Rules of Engagement: A Review of 'Lions For Lambs'

Of the swathe of ‘war on terror’ films that were released in 2006 and 2007, ‘Lions for Lambs’ is perhaps the most pressingly of-the-moment, and is unapologetic about this immediacy. ‘The Kingdom’ happily subsumed any political ideas beneath a whitewash of villainous wahabi militants and massive gun battles. ‘Rendition’ conceived of terrorism as force that was at once powerful enough to fracture the space-time continuum, and pliable enough to be overcome by Reese Witherspoon’s marital earnestness. Robert Redford’s film by contrast can proudly be likened to a particularly good weekday issue of a newspaper made celluloid, and a broadsheet more incisive, potent and naïve than any currently in circulation.

When I first saw the film two years ago I did not think much, at the time derisively calling it the kind of script that would be written by the characters on display in Aaron Sorkin’s short-lived television show ‘Studio 60’: an over-eager primer in political awareness which fatally allowed itself to be petrified by what it saw as awe-inspiring ambition. As ‘Studio 60’ improved with reconsideration, so has ‘Lions For Lambs’, and between them they offer something of a sub-genre of American entertainment which attempts not so much a deconstruction of life in that country but a studious awareness that deconstruction may just be impossible in the current climate of necessary patriotism, 24-hour news tickers, and accepted societal segregation.

‘Lions For Lambs’ may be two years old, but with its assessment of failure in Iraq, media bias, fallen soldiers in Afghanistan, and the very real possibility of a nuclear Iran, it remains as contemporary as today’s instalment of the six o’clock news. It strives for these issues to be more than just references upon which to hang some other, conventional drama, but rather constructs them as the drama. In an early scene in a base in Afghanistan, a commander begins his briefing to the troops by telling them to ask questions and take notes: the film, too, is intended as a prompt, not a lecture.

Which begs the question, what exactly is it prompting? This seems obvious: “they bank on your apathy” says a college professor, condemning both the self-involved governmental bureaucracy and the electorate which fails to open its eyes. The film preaches that politics is not another planet, but rather that our actions can be part of the political process. Whether this is followed through in the conclusion of the drama is another thing. The journalist being given an exclusive scoop from a slick senator about a new military offensive in Afghanistan suffers a crisis of conscience, realising she is little but a corporate cog in a machine for propaganda delivery. However, the images of her staring wistfully out the back of a limo at the White House, the Vietnam memorial, and Arlington cemetery, fail to say much. One story strand sees two college kids enlist due to their desire to connect with the world around them, and make an appreciable difference; despite this, the film bends over backwards not to explicitly valorise military service, even while persistently praising the boots on the ground. It’s the same old story: war is young men dying and old men talking (and women reporting).

The film has an energy which is born of September 12th 2001. The wounded aftermath is evoked several times, and it is clear that Redford feels he too was swept up in an undignified lashing out which led, step by step, to what the film understands as the debacle of Iraq. To answer the earlier question, the film is prompting engagement. No bad thing to promote, but no effort is expended to parse the echelons of involvement: America lashed out at the middle east after the towers came down, and in ‘Lions For Lambs’ the youth of America is ordered to lash out at the establishment that banks on their complacency. (For a piece of entertainment so avowedly political, the drama remains at home. We may watch two soldiers stranded in the mountains fend off dozens of Taliban with dwindling ammo, but these scenes are merely the emphasis placed on the dialogue about this initiative, and the response of the American public to it.)

Conceived of, directed, and written with simplicity in mind, ‘Lions For Lambs’ has a singularity of purpose which is bracing. It may not be a call to arms, but it is a call to attention, and whether you consider it to be a success or not, a large-scale Hollywood production with three A-list stars (Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep) produced with this level of gloss that desires little more than to reach just one person, just prick up the ears of one individual who might both try to improve their conduct and be in the position where this might have a positive impact on if not the global stage then American life, is truly a thing to marvel at.