a great movie. this is the decent start point for define it. first, for performances. second, for the perspective about politic and war. not the last, for the admirable job of Robert Redford. sure, after many films about similar subject, it is easy to criticize it. but it is more than a story of idealism and fall of noble intentions. it is a film about rolling history. about its trues and about the need of desire to change everything. not as expression of naivety . but as duty. short, a real great film.

Released in 2007, I had the good fortune of watching this at the behest of a friend who is a Redford fan. It is a movie that I would buy on DVD and here is why. It is somewhat prophetic to what now exists seven years later. In 2007, this would NOT have made it popular to watch. After all, it dared to criticize the use of the press for good propaganda and the use of our universities to recruit to causes instead of resolving the real problems in the 'political science', aka political manipulation, of the real promises of democracy. Some critics found the dialogue overwhelming. In 2007, especially in America and its allied nations like Canada, it would be. After all, it dares to challenge three things that we fail to deal with, still today: the arrogance of the American, and all western, politicians, that it is only they who know how to solve the problems of the world; the incompetence of our modern 'journalists' in really knowing and fulfilling their moral and legal duty in our democracies, to expose the truth, instead breaking our daily news down into sound or picture bytes that only satisfy their personal economies; BUT, and most importantly, the blatant incompetence of even 'educated' citizens to recognize that 'democracy' is NOT the right to 'get smart enough' so that the system can be manipulated to make the individual comfortable. Indeed, the final frames of that picture (where the student, whom Redford's university professor character is trying to reawaken to his potential role in real democracy, sits in front of a television screen watching Afghanistan war news roll by as the greater escape of shallow entertainment is surfed) should meld the message for all watchers. At least, this film should awaken the conscience of those who have not fallen into the shallow belief that, as long as they are properly entertained, clothed and fed, it matters not what happens to others, even if it is just down the block. No. In 2007, this movie would not have grossed millions at the box office because it dared to challenge, in an honest and relatively nonjudgmental way, our personal roles in all of the injustice that remains in our world. Yes, even into Afghanistan in 2014 and the Ukraine and Venezuela in the same March days that I watched this prophetic and compelling movie. That is to say, the movie is compelling to those who dare to follow the dialogue and the deeper, insidious messages that became too radically exposed by 2014. Oh, Tom Cruise may not have given the performance of his life, thereby detracting from Meryl Streep and Robert Redford's and others performances in this movie. But, he should be applauded for daring to undertake this movie and for Redford daring to produce a movie that will never gross the millions of other blockbusters that elevate blood and gore to the epitome of entertainment, no matter what is happening in the real world around us. Yes, I will be recommending this movie in footnotes to my book in progress because I dare to write that it is our individual incompetence to our individual duty as responsible citizens that really leads to the decline of the potential of democracy. Instead of applying the messages in this movie, we continue to make 'democracy' a modern farce. This movie simply becomes record that this was a debate raised in America nearly a decade ago. If that is not a measure of the movie's relevance today, I do not know what is. Don MacAlpine, Saskatchewan, Canada

****SPOILERS**** We get three different views in the film about the goings on in the US and abroad in the war in Afghanistan as well to a lesser extent Iraq from three different points of view. The first has to do with US Senator Jasper Irving, Tom Cruise, being interviewed by ANX news reporter Jannine Roth, Meryl Streep, about his new and revolutionary efforts in winning the war as well as hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Sen. Irving is full of optimism in how the war in Afghanistan is now going with a major US military offensive in the offering, when the snow covering the Afghan mountains melts, in the spring. While bragging to Mrs.Roth about how great things are going to be a US Army helicopter is shot down over Afghanistan with two of the US military personal on it Earnset Rodriguez, Michael Pena,& Arian Finch, Derek Luke, jumping out and surviving in the snow below.We then have UCLA history professor Stephen Malley, Robert Redford, having a jam or BS session with one of his most brilliant student Todd Hayes, Andrew Garfield, who despite skipping classes gets nothing but straight A's. Malley wants Todd to take things seriously or else he'll end up disillusioned with life and may well turn to drugs and alcohol to makes things more interesting for himself. As for Finch & Rodriguez, whom we find out were once students of Prof.Malley their holding on to dear life in the snow as a battle hardened Taliban unit is slowly closing in on them for the kill.We then shoot back to Mrs. Roth interviewing Sen. Jasper who's a little bit unnerved in his optimistic views in forecasting the war's rosy future that both Rodriguez & Finch are involved in her knowing that she's heard the same line of BS some 40 years ago, in 1967, as a collage reporter about the war in Vietnam which turned out to be a total disaster for the US. It's not that long that we go back to Prof.Malley telling the not to attentive,he seemed to have better things on his mind, Todd Hayes about his life as a US Army servicemen in Vietnam and a protested during the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention where he ended up getting his skull fractured by a policemen's baton! As all this chit chat and mindless talk is going on back in the real world, the war in Afghanistan, all efforts to save both Riodriguez & Finch by their fellow US Special Forces personnel falls short with them, blazing away at their attackers, going down in a blaze of glory as the Taliban catches up with them and blasts the two brave American fighting men to kingdom come!With Mrs. Roth now back at her ANX newspaper office she's told by her boss, Kiven Dunn, to go with the totally BS story that Sen. Jasper gave her about how great the war in Afghanisatn is going to be after the winter snow melt. Knowing better but, with a sick mother that she's taking care of, needing the job to pay her expensive she goes with it in promoting the endless war that she knows is a lost cause just like Sen. Jasper's future political aspirations.P.S Very accurate film about how hopeless the both wars in Iraq & Afghanistan really are. In fact the war in Iraq ended a few years later after the movie was released with the US installed,if you can call it that, Iraqi Government far worse for the Iraqi people then the one it replaced which was that of Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein! As for the War in Asfghastain it's still going on with record US losses and no end, unless the US & it's NATO allies withdrew, in sight! That even after reportedly, if we believe what were told by the US Government & media, having the head of the Al Qeada Terrorist Organization, who was the very reason why the US went to war against Afghanistan in the first place, Osama Bin-Leden gunned down in his hideout by a squad of Navy Seals in May 2011.

Very few movies make your gray matter active and provoke a thought in your head, start the ball rolling, and this is one such movie. Lions for lambs is a movie surely worth your watch. The plot is flat, with things happening at different places within about same time period but it is infused with profound subtlety that provides the film with a rich texture, with the superb background score helping a lot. Meryl Strep is fabulous and so is every other actor in the film. Each role is justified with the right amount of screen time. This film is tough, of a sort that would have a different reaction if you are watching it in different situations and will also depend on how much you support the war in Afghanistan. This is not a popcorn movie, it is like a lecture by a wise a person from whom you can learn a lot, only if you want to. So watch it only if such things inspire and interest you, then you shall like it.