Lectured by 'Lions For Lambs'

Those of us lucky enough to have had a mentor who truly cared, will acknowledge the relationship wasn't always rooted in agreement. As Robert Redford wisely puts it in the film, "the tough thing about adulthood is that it starts before you even know it starts, when you're already a dozen decisions into it."

And whether we received direction or not, our choices, along with our mistakes, are ours, and ours alone, to live with.

That is, unless you're a US senator making big-wig, war-time decisions, 6 years into an increasingly hopeless conflict abroad.

Lions for Lambs interlaces three parallel narratives: A concerned political science professor attempting to inspire his gifted, but jaded student, an anti-war journalist interviewing a Hawkish senator, and two young, idealistic Army Rangers fighting for survival in Afghanistan.

The separate storylines fail to ever truly connect, but their disjointed nature doesn't prevent them packing an intellectual punch.

At the film's core lies the question of whether we, as American citizens, are ultimately capable of more; for ourselves, for each other, our country, and the world. What is our duty as responsible members of the most perfect, imperfect Democracy ever to have existed?

"Rome is burning," and it is up to us to decide whether we help quell the fire, or squirrel away from the flame. In a society that banks on the abundance of complacency and cowardice, are you brave enough to put some skin in the game to help generate some positive change?

If you're not feeling patronized by now, you might be by the time you're finished watching the movie; and rightfully so.

Turn it off if you must, but if you can stomach the confrontation, Redford corners us into considering the conundrum of comfort vs. sacrifice, apathy vs. activism, struggle vs. privilege.

Not quite an exciting war thriller, not so much an accurate historical drama either, Lions for Lambs' attempted political commentary falls short of inspirational, teasing us with every bit of wasted potential it tells us we have in ourselves.

The film's dialogue heavy, feel-good debates fight the good fight against cynicism, but never quite eradicate the reluctance within us they hope to cleanse. If the best actors in town (soon-to-be Spiderman, and Meryll Streep) can't piece together a promising script, how can we expect, even with competent politicians, to save a system so corrupt?

If only we knew, back in 2007, how endless twelve more years of war would feel...

With all that's currently going on in the world, Lions for Lambs' cry for optimist may be more relevant now than ever.