Lions for Lambs

My biggest problem with the movie Lions for Lambs is that its creators came off as having a conviction that the rest of the United States doesn't share. In hindsight, I think most Americans agree that invading Iraq was a bad idea. The excuse for invading was based on faulty (or manipulated) intelligence and the plan for what to do after the invasion was completely non-existent. Bush has some historically low popularity polls that reflect the nation's sentiment on the job he's done. So I'm not quite sure why Robert Redford made a movie trying to convince us the government botched Iraq when most of us know it, wish it weren't so, and yearn for someone to come into presidential power and clean up the mess, an unenviable, perhaps impossible task.

Aside from lecturing its audience on what it already knows, the movie engaged in some creative dramatic license. Manipulative, really. At the very end of the movie, a Warthog is flying back and forth attempting to provide covering fire for two stranded American soldiers. For most of the movie, the two soldiers had been lying prone. But for some inexplicable reason, John Wayne heroics I guess, the two stand upright right as the Taliban moves in. They are silhouetted perfectly against the mountain background and the Taliban promptly gun them down. Moments later the Warthog returns and obliterates the area where the Taliban were standing. I know it makes for high Hollywood drama, but I don't believe trained U.S. soldiers would behave that way, especially when covering firing likely meant a rescue landing wasn't long away. Redford wanted those characters to be martyred for a cause they didn't believe in, but for a county they did. It rang hollow and contrived to me.

The reporter aspect of the movie was weak too. Meryl Streep's character is wracked with guilt for not properly getting to the truth about WMD in Iraq before the invasion. She feels reporters like herself were too complicit with the government and served an important role in selling the invasion to the American people. Which is true. The part I didn't like is when the Senator hands her a story, but she doesn't want to write it because she believes he's lying to her. Her reluctance was misplaced though. The Senator handed her a story to write about, a new offensive in Afghanistan, vague on details (when is the government not?) but full of quotes by him. A good reporter would take that story and write it full of "coulds," "wills ," and "perhaps." Instead, Streep wants to make amends for the reporting of the Iraq war and editorialize the story, spewing all her pent up frustration into one big rant. I completely agreed with her editor when he ordered her to write the story as is because that's her freaking job! To report! It's someone else's job to opine. If she wants to be a pundit, then she should quit her job as a reporter and then write thoughtful analytical commentary to her heart's content. I know I was supposed to feel some sense of tragedy when she wrote the story like her editor told her to and then broke out into tears driving by Arlington Cemetery, but I didn't. Once again, hollow and contrived.

I also had a problem with the two college students serving in Iraq. Through them, Redford hints that the trillions of dollars spent in Iraq would have been better spent in inner city neighborhoods here in the United States. Now, I don't disagree that all of the United States could benefit from an influx of cash into its infrastructure system. But Redford is as naive as Bush telling us Iraqi oil revenue would pay for the war if he thinks money is going to solve the problems that plague inner city neighborhoods. Those communities are a reflection of its residents' actions. No one from the outside can fix the irresponsible choices they make that lead to the social dysfunction surrounding them. All the money in the world can't stop someone from abusing or selling drugs, dropping out of school, robbing a liquor store, or abandoning a family. The fact of the matter is that most of inner city woes can be traced back to the disintegration of the basic family unit. This country is based on its citizenry behaving responsibly, working hard, and raising healthy children. But it's also based on free choice. I'm all for pumping money into fixing buildings and roads everything in the U.S., but inner city folks have to pull themselves up by their boot straps and help themselves first and foremost. I know some of them continue to make destructive choices while simultaneously blaming the government or other ethnic groups for their problems. Their situation will never improve until that cycle of blame and recrimination is broken in favor of ingenuity and industriousness.

So yeah, the movie has some major problems. Still, it's one of a few movies about the Iraq war. I guess it's worth watching if only for the discussion it might spawn. Here's hoping that Redford's next effort is less didactic and more Quiz Show.