In the opening scene of Lions for Lambs, a smarmy Tom Cruise (as G.O.P. pit-bull Senator Jasper Irving) explains to Meryl Streep that unless you have something poignant and progressive to say about the cloak and dagger deployment of the war on terror, it’s best to leave it in the past and focus on positive solutions for the future.  And whether you agree with this as an appropriate assessment of the surrounding political discourse, it seems like sound advice in evaluating films that make it their business to point fingers rather than proposing solutions.  Lions for Lambs is one of these films, and like the rash of recent dramas focusing on the politics of war (The Kingdom, Syriana, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah) it’s only as good as the insight it holds.  In this case it’s not very much.

The film follows three interwoven narratives which survey the state of nationalistic wartime infighting.  Cruise does an effective job of representing the power-hungry politicos as he faces off with Streep’s intrepid reporter, who represents the media’s growing guilt over their perceived propagandizing of poor intelligence and false claims in the lead-up to Iraq.  The debate takes form as a young university student (played by the excellent Andrew Garfield who blew my mind in Boy A at TIFF) defends his apathy to his tired yet virtuous old professor (Redford).  And the battle is quite literally the battle, with two bright-eyed American kids pinned to the Afghani tundra, defending their optimism with guns.

The stories cover their bases nicely, and raise the somewhat controversial notion that conscientious objectors can hinder political progress worse than those who advocate mistakes.  What’s noticeably absent, however, is pacing.  In telling the story through interwoven, dialogue-driven vignettes, director Redford has lost the element of risk that makes or breaks smart political drama.  The film feels slow – even at a lean 92 minutes – and seems to cry out for the very quality its characters keep citing as the solution to the military quagmire: action.

The obvious irony and biggest problem with Lions, is that while the resounding message seems to be a crusade against apathy, it comfortably settles into a rote condemnation of the machinations of war, leaving the audience wanting to care less.  In spite of the ‘just do something’ theme that continually surfaces, there are no suggestions for positive progress and no silver lining of hopefulness to redeem the otherwise stark message.  It does a great job of asking when and how a country can know that it’s fighting a war it can’t win.  It just doesn’t give us an answer.

Lions for Lambs opens Friday.