Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Lions for Lambs / USA / 2007

For years I’ve tried to follow what I call the Charles Bronson rule: Never criticize a movie you see for free. It comes from a saying attributed to the actor himself: “We don’t make movies for critics, since they don’t pay to see them anyhow.” Obviously this rule has its flaws, and I’m far from what you would call a real, respectable critic. But Bronson, intending to or not, highlights an important aspect to film criticism—putting down seven or eight dollars for a movie is an investment in the film, giving you ample right to hate it when it doesn’t meet expectations.

Lions for Lambs was screened in Green Bay for free, at a theatre less than two miles from my home, on a night in which I had absolutely nothing else to do. And yet, as the film ended and the lights came up, I felt cheated, robbed of something I couldn’t account for. This is Robert Redford’s first directorial effort in seven years, a dramatized look at the on-field and in-office battles surrounding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, who also wrote The Kingdom, which I didn’t see, Lions for Lambs had the opportunities so many others have had—to deliver knock-out blows to everyone in the upper echelon of American politics, from the Administration that wipes away civil liberties like flies from their face to the journalists—the so-called Fourth Estate—who should have awoken the national conscience with privileged words and pictures but didn’t. Lions for Lambs is an exercise in retroactive protest, an experiment that is ninety minutes too long and arrives five years too late. It has nothing new to say, no offered solutions or lessons to learn, even when it so easily could. And because Redford’s film refuses to break any rules, I’ll break my own: This is garbage.

I should also take this opportunity to admit that, besides being a bad “critic” who frequently breaks his own rules for film-viewing, I’m also a sell-out. This screening, which was monitored by security, was also attended by an MGM representative—a polite, hospitable man who I have absolutely no qualms with. He didn’t write the movie, he didn’t cast the movie, and he didn’t direct the movie; he did his job with utmost respect to us all, even after a humiliatingly public wanding in a roped-off area outside the theatre. So when time came to leave, a gauntlet of moviegoers passed by him outside the theatre—no ropes, no metal detectors—and he managed to stop me. Me and me alone. He asked me what I thought of the film, a pen braced to blank clipboard paper, ear bent to my every word; and slowly, carefully, I took a deep breath, gathered every thought that had manifested during the 90-minute runtime, and said: “Pretty good.” No. Not “pretty good.” In fact, only a few paces back, I had handed my circled “3” rating to an older gentleman in a nice suit, not caring whether he saw the faint ink-shape or not. I wanted to leave, to go home; it was night, and I was pissed. And yet I gave my “Pretty good,” waited for any other questions—there were none, he never looked up—and then departed.

All through the parking lot I felt like a hypocrite: Had I not learned anything from the film I had just watched, from those thin little scenes with Redford’s college professor lecturing some young undergrad punk with tangled hair about how his generation was being lazy? Was I not, just now, being that young undergrad punk, only on a shallow personal level? I’ve never been to a film where someone from the studio was there, asking for my opinion—this should have been my greatest moment, to let the verbal opinions spew forth. But I knew the film was finished, that no “needs more this” or “needs better that” would have any impact on anyone. So, yes, I’m a sell-out, someone who learned nothing from what he just saw; but, then again, my act of self-betrayal will remain on this website, while another man’s will be in theatres everywhere this weekend.

And P.S.: Valkyrie looks terrible.

Tom’s Review

by Adam Balz | Source: 35MM Theatrical Print
09 Nov 2007 9:25 AM | Submit Comment