Lions for Lambs

Overtly pedantic and overstrained, Tom Cruise’s first undertaking as co-head of United Artists is a politically top-heavy triptych of simultaneous political conversations made all the more cumbersome due to its extravagant cast that includes Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford, who also handles directorial duties. A pungent vapor of earnestness permeates Redford’s unimaginative handling of newbie screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan’s three-note script that toggles between an Afghan battlefield crisis, a senator’s one-on-one press meeting with a TV journalist, and a professor/student conference. For a film attempting to grapple with the seething anger of an American populace left hung out to dry by the Bush administration, "Lions for Lambs" is far to muted and meek to achieve its perceived goals of inciting social activism.

Rated R, 92 mins. (C) (Two Stars)