The Dark Knight

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Hancock

Wanted

The Love Guru

Get Smart

The Incredible Hulk

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Sex and the City

Savage Grace

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Surfwise

What Happens in Vegas

Professor Malley (Robert Redford) makes his student an offer he hopes he'll refuse.

Lions for Lambs comprises three concurrent scenes. In D.C., where it's 10 a.m., tough, unflappable liberal journalist Janine Roth (Meryl Streep) -- a reporter seemingly modeled after The New York Times' Judith Miller -- has been granted unprecedented access to Republican Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise), the great white hope of the Republican party with his sights locked firmly on the White House. Their unchaperoned one-hour interview in his Capitol Hill office is a one-on-one: no publicists, no handlers, no spin doctors to steer the conversation. During their historic tête-à-tête, which evolves into somewhat of a philosophical debate, the charismatic young Irving unveils the party's new plan for infiltrating Afghanistan and taking back control of the war. In dignified tones, Roth questions the Republicans' tendency to disregard history and live only in the present, while Irving lays the blame on the media for selling the war to the American public.

Disenfranchised college student Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield, left) contemplates his future.

At the same time, it's about 7 a.m. in California, where inspirational poli-sci professor Stephen Malley (Robert Redford) has summoned his most promising yet disillusioned student Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) to his office hours. Prof. Malley makes the privileged frat boy a modest proposal: Stay away from my class for the rest of the semester, and I'll give you a solid B. Or else come to class, participate and receive the grade you deserve. It's a gambit intended to light a fire and ignite a civic conscience under the young man who represents the future of our country, and it provokes a well-thought-out response that Malley doesn't see coming. And across the ocean, two of Malley's idealistic former students (Derek Luke, Michael Peña) are practicing what they preach as troops 'coptering into Afghanistan on the very mission that Sen. Irving is briefing Janine Roth on back in D.C.

The conversations that these people have and the conclusions that they come to all have a profound impact on one another, and it's enriching to see this articulated in such a powerful way. Redford has directed the most fair and balanced perspective on the state of the union we've seen in the arts. Both sides of the issues are given their due and their voice with dignity. There's no shouting. No name-calling. No raised voices. You'd be hard-pressed to find anything else on the media landscape that more accurately articulates America's conflicted state of the nation than Lions for Lambs.

by Rob. Walton

photo credit: David James