Film review: Lions for lambs

America’s War on Terror is the thorny issue at stake here in a film which uses its various plot strands to take on American foreign policy, a celebrity-obsessed media and the apathy of youth in American society.

Robert Redford, Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep play a college professor, a Republican senator and a liberal journalist respectively, each with their own personal agendas but searching for answers as to how the United States forgot the lessons of Vietnam so quickly and plunged headlong into another “unsolvable” conflict.

With three of Hollywood’s heavyweights acting their socks off this film is powerfully delivered, but never really fulfils its potential as a critique of US action in Iraq and Afghanistan. DVD extras include theatrical trailers, an insight into the writer and script, full commentary by director Robert Redford and an interesting “making-of” featurette with cast interviews.