Blu-rays, DVDs & more
eBay affliate link
Art of the Movies
Buy posters on MoviePoster.com
IMDb
Lions for Lambs movie stills
Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Redford confounds expectations, not politically but dramatically. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: When a filmmaker directs himself in a role that's hopelessly dull, is that professional suicide, or just kindness in not burdening some other actor with the part? Read more
David Germain, Associated Press: Much of the movie plays like a civics lesson. Read more
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: ...a passionate but mannered rhetorical exercise. Read more
Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A shallow tar pit cluttered with skeletal ideas. Read more
Nathan Rabin, AV Club: A hopelessly stilted political drama that plays like U.S. News & World Report: The Movie. Read more
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Robert Redford (who also directed), Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep might just as well have appeared on-screen for a couple of minutes with signs that said, 'War is bad,' and been done with it. Saves everyone the cost of a ticket. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: It does not feel good to report that a movie with Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise makes the eyelids droop. But that's what Lions for Lambs does. Read more
Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Redford and Carnahan would like us to ponder our role in their fate. And maybe we would, if the lecture weren't so dull and self-satisfied. Read more
Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Lions for Lambs marks Robert Redford's seventh film as director...and it's certainly not his best. But I'll say this for it: It's his bravest. Read more
Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Like many a Hollywood political drama, Lions for Lambs carries a full head of steam that is indistinguishable from a lot of hot air. Read more
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Lions for Lambs is a civics lesson, necessary to be sure, but leaving us drained of resolve, wading in the morass it hoped to pull us out of. Read more
Tom Long, Detroit News: It's missing the movie part of being a movie. And so it sort of just sits there talking. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The tiny scale and armchair talkiness mark the movie as a bit of a folly, an act of idealistic hubris in today's commercial marketplace, yet that's its (minor) fascination too. Read more
Jonathan F. Richards, Film.com: It means to use the Cruise-Redford-Streep star power to get us talking about things we ought to be talking about. Read more
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: The film doesn't so much end as just stop. We're left thinking less about what we've heard than about what we haven't seen -- a satisfying movie. Read more
Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: Less a war drama than a set of dueling position papers. Read more
Gene Seymour, Newsday: What we have here isn't a drama so much as a dramatized position paper in three parts. Read more
Christy Lemire, Newsweek: Carnahan's script is thoughtful, but its ideal venue may be a college debate class, not your local multiplex. Read more
Anthony Lane, New Yorker: Redford is surely smart enough to realize, as the professor turns his ire on those who merely chatter while Rome burns, that his movie is itself no better, or more morally effective, than high-concept Hollywood fiddling. Read more
David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The new antiwar pictures are all clunks and wind, but they're full of fervent acting and affectingly rough -- they lack the usual studio overpolish. Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs is the clunkiest, windiest, and roughest of the lot. Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Lions for Lambs is Redford's latest film as a director. It's also, sadly, one of his weakest. Read more
Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Unfortunately, a single, compelling plot would have been far more effective than earnest lectures in triplicate. Read more
Kyle Smith, New York Post: A talkathon that is going to rival the Tampa Bay Devil Rays' season ender for its ability to produce empty seats. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Plays out as a mountain of self-righteously guilt-ridden rhetoric perched on a molehill of narrative. Read more
Rex Reed, New York Observer: Lambs is utterly lacking in any kind of recognizable cinematic arc, convincing logic, coherent narrative or persuasive political viewpoint. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: This sometimes heavy-handed sermon about political apathy among the young, the stakes of media collusion with government, and the fog of war is almost certain to scare off the people it is intended to reach. Read more
Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: ...Lions for Lambs is also stagy, and worse, dull. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The film is built not upon characters and plot but upon ideas. That would be fine if the ideas were revolutionary or interesting, but they're fairly commonplace. Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is a talkathon with a certain amount of military action. It could be presented about as well as a radio play. Read more
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The movie may use a lot of words, but it doesn't mince them, and its very directness is a relief. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's a fictional tale that has the immediacy of something hot off the presses -- something raw and clunky, but plugged into the moment - with characters talking about the same things people are talking about outside the theater. Read more
Dana Stevens, Slate: Lions for Lambs appears to have been created by someone who's never seen one of these newfangled contraptions called 'movies,' or for that matter, witnessed that phenomenon known as 'speech.' Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's commendable that the filmmakers didn't make a strident screed, but did they have to settle for a waffling yak-fest? Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Lions for Lambs appears to have taken its inspiration from Al Gore's stolid An Inconvenient Truth, using the stage lecture and Power Point presentation in lieu of dramatic momentum. Read more
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: There is much talk of paralysis in Robert Redford's what's-wrong-with-America movie Lions for Lambs, and there is a whole lot of the same in the movie itself. Read more
Dave Calhoun, Time Out: The filmmakers must have imagined sparky, engaging conversation between these duos similar to a high-speed tennis bout between skillful pros; what emerges is more comparable to a lazy afternoon table-tennis knockabout in an old people's home. Read more
Trevor Johnston, Time Out: Streep's impassioned performance exemplifies the seriousness of the stakes, but a lot of liberal hand-wringing, however commendable, does not in itself a movie make. Read more
Claudia Puig, USA Today: Though these dialogues are worthy, the medium doesn't seem right for the message. Read more
Derek Elley, Variety: Robert Redford's first helming chore in seven years, and his most directly political pic yet, amounts to a giant cry of "Americans, get engaged!" wrapped in a star-heavy discourse that uses a lot of words to say nothing new. Read more
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: For all its passion and topical currency, the movie plays too often like a college colloquium. Read more