Lions for Lambs

(Movie Review)

This movie is just now hitting the new release section of my local video store out here in the Japanese countryside. And so here I am with my review. As always, by the time I get around to reviewing a movie in Japan, it is old news in America.
(Old, old news. Remember this movie? It seems like it was another lifetime ago when it first came out in the United States.)

Besides the time delay, another factor of living out by myself in the Japanese countryside is I tend to do all my movie watching and reviewing in a vacuum. I have not talked to another living soul about their opinion of this movie. I haven’t bounced my opinion off of friends in coffee shops, like I would do back home. And I certainly haven’t talked to the activist gang at media mouse to find out what the cool “radical chic” response to this movie should be. I’m sure this movie has already been talked to death back home, but for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts as I see things from my couch.

I remember reading a couple reviews on-line when this movie first came out that complained that the movie was just people sitting around talking. I don’t remember who those reviewers were now, but clearly they were in the wrong theater. If you’re the kind of person who regularly enjoys faire like “The Princess Dairies” or “American Pie 3”, then this movie is not for you.

If you’re a political junkie though, and if you perhaps have fond memories of staying up until late in the night debating politics in your college dorm room, then I can guarantee this movie will at least keep you entertained for the time you’re watching it. And that’s reason enough to justify the price of a movie rental right there.

(Although to be fair to the above unnamed critics: granted your investment is a little bit different for a video rental than for a night out a movie theater. If I had made advance plans to see this movie with friends, gone out of my house and driven to the theater on a cold day, waited in line, bought a huge bucket of buttery popcorn and coca-cola, and then settled down to watch this movie, I might have been a little bit disappointed myself. As a rental though it works quite nicely).

It is clearly (as my old professor who was fond of quoting Candide would say) not the best possible movie in the best possible of worlds. If I wanted to take it apart with a red pen I could point to a number of parts where I disagreed with the point a character was making, or where one character was making a point that never got adequately rebutted by another character (even though it should have been).
But, such is also the case with any real life political talk show. It doesn't stop us political junkies from watching them.

Okay, having established that this film is entertaining (for at least a subset of the population) let’s move onto the next question. Does it have any sort of larger redeeming value?

As a lot of critics have already pointed out, there’s not a lot new in this film. I certainly didn't walk away from it saying, “My whole way of thinking about the war has been completely changed.” In fact I’d be hard pressed to name any new facts or information I gained from this film.

But, it would be expecting too much of the film to ask it to do this. The film’s not going to create a new matrix for looking at the war on terror. There’s nothing new under the sun, and there’s nothing you can say that can’t be said.
And even if there was, that’s what books and newspapers are for. It’s certainly not going to be in a Hollywood movie that takes who knows how many months from conception to final editing and release.

And it also should be admitted that this is not the kind of film Noam Chomsky would have created if he had been on the writing board. The scope of the discussion is limited to a bland kind of liberalism. The suffering of the people in the two countries the US army is occupying is not shown. In fact it’s not even mentioned or even alluded to. The merits or demerits of the war are measured in terms of the suffering to the US. The good intentions of the US government are assumed throughout, even though it’s admitted mistakes have been made along the way.

Despite all this, the film is interesting as a kind of a barometer of the limits of discussion being allowed in the main stream media. There was a time when the war began when big media companies like “Clear Channel” would ban all anti-war songs on their airwaves. Now public dissatisfaction with the war has grown to such a point that we have a mainstream Hollywood movie, with big name actors, that played across all the major cinemas with the standard red carpet release, which openly says the war is a mistake, and its objectives are unachievable.

I’m sure conservatives will claim (have claimed) that this is elite liberal Hollywood, and doesn't represent the real American opinion, but if I’m not mistaken opinion polls show this movie, and the concerns it raises about the war, are well in line with majority public opinion.

To the best of my knowledge, there was never a major studio film like this produced during the Vietnam War. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong. But the only topical movies I can think of produced during the actual war are films like John Wayne’s “The Green Berets”. And if you watch “The Green Berets”, and compare it to this film, the contrast is pretty amazing.
(Of course the Vietnam War era had thousands of people on the street demonstrating. Our generation has Hollywood movie stars and lots of people who do their protesting on blogger and facebook, raising the question of whether our new media savvy has served to decrease, rather than increase, activism. But that’s a whole other subject for a whole different post).

If journalism is the first draft of history, contemporary movies are the first draft of interpretation. Once the War is over, we may be able to see even more critical movies re-examining the conflict, as was the case once the Vietnam War ended. For now, this is the best Hollywood is able to give us. In 100 years, who knows?
(Actually, probably in 100 years this will be one of many American failed imperial enterprises that is quietly swept under the rug. Just like past ventures, such as the Philippine War, have been quietly removed from the history books).

Additional thoughts:

When people complain that the film is all talk, it’s worth remembering the incredible financial obstacles an anti-war film faces. U.S. government policy is that any film that portrays the army in a positive manner, and whose script is approved by the pentagon, gets free [read, tax payer funded] use of army equipment, soldiers, and advisors to help in the production of their movie. An anti-war movie gets none of these advantages. So keep this in mind the next time someone complains that anti-war movies are too talky.

2. That being said...for a movie entirely composed of people sitting around talking, it’s amazing how poor the writer’s ear for natural conversation seems to have been. There were several times when I thought to myself, “Oh come on! Nobody talks like that in real life.” The most glaring example being the classroom discussion scenes, but there are many close seconds, such as the dialogue between Robert Redford and his slacker student, Meryl Streep singing "The Who" to her editor, et cetera.
I guess this is some of the slack you have to give a movie. If action movies can contain feats of physical impossibility, then maybe talky movies can contain scenes overloaded with verbosity if the writer is trying to get a point across.

One last thought:
As someone living overseas, I can't tell you how happy I am to have this movie in the Japanese video stores. I think anyone who's been living overseas the past few years can vouch for the fact that America's image has become more and more bloodthirsty and warmongering recently.
Since the war began, I couldn't begin to tell you the amount of Japanese people who are absolutely stunned to find out I don't like war. Some of them act like they've found a two headed dog. "You don't like war? But you're an American!?" (And this isn't even counting all the flack I get from Europeans).
Well, I'm trying to change the image of Americans one conversation at a time over here in Japan. In the meantime, despite the flaws of this moive I'm glad it's on the rental shelves, to help show people in Japan (and other rental stores around the world) that not all Americans blindly support the war.

Link of the Day
Rep. Ehlers Targeted with Petitions against Big Media

Bonus Link: More Japanese music on youtube.

Part of the fun with old Japanese music is just the pure cheesiness of it. Especially when it is a cheesy Japanese remake of an American song that was cheesy to begin with. For that reason, I absolutely love this Japanese version of "The Locomotion" from the early 60s.

Lions for Lambs: Movie Reviews (Scripted)