Karnataka   

An agonising, shallow debate

Lions for Lambs (English)

Cast: Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Robert Redford

Director: Robert Redford

Oscar winning A-list star cast fails to save this film. Everything about the movie is irritating — from the pompous pretentiousness of the title (taken from an apocryphal story in World War I) to Robert Redford looking like a weird brittle marionette that will break into its component parts at any show of emotion.

The film, like quite a few 9/11 movies, is a mosaic of different stories happening in far flung corners of the globe with a connecting thread that comes together in the end so that we can sit back and say “a ha that is how it all comes together”. “Lions for Lambs” is not particularly ambitious as far as location goes. We have these tight editing from one set of talking heads to the other. You have an idealistic professor (Redford) gently upbraiding his bright student who showed potential but is on the path of callow commercialism.

Then there is whiny reporter Janine (Meryl Streep) who has got an exclusive interview with the charismatic senator Jasper Irvin (Cruise). And then there are also two U.S. soldiers Ernest and Arian on hostile territory in Afghanistan in an operation gone terribly wrong.

The movie is vaguely reminiscent of “Spy Game” which also featured Redford. For starters, how is it that there is no Islamic representation? Of the actors, golden haired 71-year-old Redford is a bewildering cross between plastic and wooden.Like all golden superstars, Cruise has to bear the burden of his good looks. But even excellent acting from Cruise does not look like it could save this wordy, hollow film.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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