Lions for Lambs for Anyone?

So Robert Redford’s upcoming Lions for Lambs is intended to be a rousing call to action for apathetic America, and a harsh indictment of the Bush administration. As he told Variety, “Our country has hit a point where we have lost so much. We have lost lives, we’ve lost sacred freedoms, we’ve lost financial stability; we’ve lost our position of respect on the world stage.”

It’s part of a slew of films based on the Iraq war, such as Redacted, The Kingdom and Rendition, none of which is expected to perform very well. Redford’s movie promises to be another polemic full of talking points and debates that have been rehashed and rehashed again for years on end by the 24-hour news networks, so going to a movie to see them laid out once again doesn’t seem like a particularly inviting way to spend a couple hours on a weekend.

Then again, Redford likely didn’t make this film with the expectation of raking in the bucks, even with Tom Cruise as one of his stars. There’s the chance that one person who sees it might be inspired to actually get up off their duffs and try to accomplish something - I know when I saw JFK as a young lad, there was a spell where I wanted to go into politics and clean it all up single-handedly. The risk here, though, is that it will be seen as just another polemic that won’t really accomplish much of anything. The people who need to see it will not see it, and the people who DO see it will likely be the converted.

I’m already dreading the O’Reilly wailing if this thing actually wins Oscars.