Saiyan_Prince_Vegeta Well, I guess it's a movie about political games and shows that politics is not an easy subject."Lions for Lambs" probably comes from the idea that politicians who never risked their lives (lambs) command soldiers who risk their lives every day (lions). But on the other hand (in my opinion) of course politicians have moral pressure.Regarding political games - for example, sometimes politicians need to make decisions which might be good for the country, but might not be supported by most people and thus they need media to help them show good side of their decisions.Well, it is a known fact that rich politicians can push their better more and that media is extremely powerful tool for that. Just look at propaganda in Russian-Ukrainian war in Donbass, like two nations became even worse enemies, especially the amount of propaganda in Russia, that totally changes the way people think there. If you look in Russia in Ukraine - most TV channels are owned by politicians. . Coincidence? Not really. It is a powerful tool. Soon maybe most news websites will also be owned by politicians? Interesting, how in Ukraine some TV channels never wanted to show people like Saakashvili, because they were owned by corrupt politicians.Also, this movie had interesting idea, that people who were born poor and in bad areas when they grow up they join the army and want to fight for the country who didn't really care about them. While kids who had everything in their life, like me, don't want to join the army and die for the country, even if we are really patriotic. Well, this movie has really a lot of dialogues, the whole movie basically dialogues between several people, which is unusual for movies. Simply speaking there are ~6 main characters and Tom Cruise is one of them. He looks really nice here, he's adult and handsome and has that Ethan Hunt look. The dialogues are really fast, so I didn't follow everything really, but if I would watch it again and would follow every line then maybe I would understand this movie better.

MFFJM2 There is so much wrong with this talky polemic that it's hard to know where to start. First, a US senator with Presidential aspirations brings a TV journalist to his office to announce a new military strategy in Afghanistan. Huh..? Since when do US senators make or announce US military strategy..? What happened to the Dept. of Defense, the SECDEF, the POTUS..? Are they on vacation..? Then the senator, Tom Cruise in one of his most unbelievable roles, tells the journalist, Meryl Streep, the new strategy has begun 10 seconds ago. Hold on, this US senator is announcing a military operation to the press while it is still ongoing..? Isn't that a violation of security..? Perhaps you're beginning to see some of the problems with this film. A film that purports to be realistic, dealing with real world issues, in politics and military strategy should at least try to achieve some verisimilitude, that is it should at least attempt to look real. Then we have the actual military operation, beginning with a briefing by the Battalion Commander to what appears to be his entire command, where they continually interrupt him with questions. Huh..?

M Campbell This is a movie that had great potential, great actors, a decent concept, (however you feel about the topic of the Bush initiated wars). My problem with the movie is that it seemed to end halfway through the story. Just when you start to get engaged in the characters story the movie ends with no conclusion as to why any thing you've been watching has happened. (spoiler may be ahead) We have an anti-war college professor (Robert Redford), engaging a bright student who hasn't been coming to class about his potential and the reasons why he seems to have dropped out of life. To do this he relates a story of his two students (one Latino, the other Black) who against his advice joined the military to get money to go to grad school. He tells this student that he admires them for their willingness to engage in life even though he thinks they made the wrong decision.Next we have a reporter (Meryl Streep) talking to a Republican senator (Tom Cruise) about a new government initiative to do anything necessary to win the "War on Terror". The report challenges the Republican parties lies that got the US into the war in the 1st place, and questions the new senator about publishing this latest escalation initiative. He retorts back that basically it was the compliance of the press that allow them to get away with it, and she agree's to her paper's part in all of that. Saying news is no longer about investigating facts it's about ratings, and she's not responsible for that. Through their talking, you get to feel that the new senator wants to run for President soon, and he want's the media to view him as a warrior who will end this "War on Terror" war by "Doing whatever it takes" (Bomb civilians, torture innocent people, kill more soldiers).Then we see glimpses of the two soldiers on a frozen mountain (one wounded) fighting off a brigade of Taliban soldiers with the mighty American military sitting behind a drone screen debating how to rescue them. They drop bombs that don't kill the Taliban soldiers but make them angry enough to advance the attack. The bombing run does however convince the two American soldiers (who just happen to be the college students the professor was talking about) to commit suicide by standing up and firing at this whole brigade of angry Taliban soldiers knowing they can not win. Only to be killed minutes before another drone strike, and a helicopter can reach them. OK, now that you're engaged in the 3 story-lines, what happens? How do they all connect? Well actually they don't. The story ends with the reporter going back to her paper saying she doesn't want to publish the exclusive story she just was offered by the senator and her boss threaten her job if she chooses not to. (Does she or doesn't she, we never find out). How about the professor's student, does he now engage in life after hearing this story (well, we just hope so, but it ends before we know if he comes to the next class or not.) The two students who joined the military are dead. Does the professor know this and is this part of a campaign to dissuade others from joining the military to get into grad school (well, we just don't know). Does the senator run for president are more lies published (well, we just don't know)..The movie ends and you have no story connections to the 3 story-lines, no conclusions (other than the 2 dead soldiers).This is a movie that needs an ending... How the script writers, director and actors all missed that is beyond me.Yes, I get the moral implication and statements being made here: The young (minority) men with potential who are dying in a war that was built on a lie just to get money to go to graduate school. Other wealthy white students that do not engage with politics and the world around them, but exist for their own pleasure. An American press that is no longer investigating and reporting news but rather is run by big business interested only in money and ratings. And crazy dangerous (mostly Republican) politicians who do not care about people, especially those being killed in the wars they started.But really does this make for a good movie? Well perhaps, if it had a decent script and story-line that was somehow connected, however this movie does not! This is not a reflection on the actors, who all did their part; This is a reflection on the script writers, producers, and directors who all should of known how to make a better movie about this subject.

justbusinessthebook 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