One of the complaints constantly levelled at modern mainstream Hollywood cinema is that it's big on muzzle flash and fireballs but light on tough-minded engagement of those topical issues and challenging ideas that dwell in the dark, foreboding place that exists beyond the comfort zone of the multiplex mindset.
So now comes Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, a searing, sharply written, relentlessly confrontational hot-button think piece in which an A-List cast lend their prestige and marquee value to a thorough chewing over of the fathomless moral complexities of post-9/11 America, the war on terror and the tensions between liberal and conservative thinking.
Working from a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan ( The Kingdom), the film appears to have been designed with slide-rule precision to redress the lack of political aggression in American cinema. For the most part it succeeds, thanks largely to pin-prick dialogue and a cluster of outstanding central performances.
Given that much of the film involves people in rooms talking, there is a staginess to Redford's pedestrian camera direction that often makes it feel like an adequately photographed stage play. That said, Redford's shortcomings as a cinematographer are more than made up for by his ability to elicit spell-binding turns from chair-bound actors who have nothing to build a performance around other than what comes out of their mouths.
Streep, Redford and Hayes are sterling - but Cruise's portrayal of the Republican senator is a revelation, an overdue reminder of what a good actor he was before he became infatuated with the term "action movie franchise". It's the Tom of old.
The thematic tangles of Lions for Lambs are framed by three concurrent events.
So now comes Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, a searing, sharply written, relentlessly confrontational hot-button think piece in which an A-List cast lend their prestige and marquee value to a thorough chewing over of the fathomless moral complexities of post-9/11 America, the war on terror and the tensions between liberal and conservative thinking.
Working from a screenplay by Matthew Michael Carnahan ( The Kingdom), the film appears to have been designed with slide-rule precision to redress the lack of political aggression in American cinema. For the most part it succeeds, thanks largely to pin-prick dialogue and a cluster of outstanding central performances.
Given that much of the film involves people in rooms talking, there is a staginess to Redford's pedestrian camera direction that often makes it feel like an adequately photographed stage play. That said, Redford's shortcomings as a cinematographer are more than made up for by his ability to elicit spell-binding turns from chair-bound actors who have nothing to build a performance around other than what comes out of their mouths.
Streep, Redford and Hayes are sterling - but Cruise's portrayal of the Republican senator is a revelation, an overdue reminder of what a good actor he was before he became infatuated with the term "action movie franchise". It's the Tom of old.
The thematic tangles of Lions for Lambs are framed by three concurrent events.
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