A Movie Review of Lions for Lambs

I enjoyed the movie “Lions for Lambs”, right up to the ending. Unfortunately, the ending did not live up to the rest of the movie.

This is a Robert Redford film, and his left wing political views are in full presentation here. But “Lions for Lambs” doesn’t merely spout left wing rhetoric; it examines both sides of the political system’s role in the conflict in Iraq.

I was caught up in the political tension, and I was caught up in the terror of two soldiers who find themselves injured and at the mercy of advancing enemy soldiers.

I wanted all the characters in the movie to be forced into definitive action. I wanted a convergence of the journalist, the senator, the professor and the student. I wanted the fabric of tension to be pulled so tight, that when it snapped, my breath would catch in my throat.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, after all the characters had spent their dialogue, the movie just stopped. It didn’t end; it just stopped.

This could have been an important movie. It could have been a movie that defined a generation’s position in this political climate. It could have been another “The Deer Hunter”.

Unfortunately, it’s just a good movie with a bad ending.