Lions for Lambs -- Spoiler Included

I'm going to discuss the Robert Redford film Lions for Lambs. While I'm going to talk about to some degree about the artistic merits of the film, this is not a review, and therefore I do not feel compelled to keep the ending a secret. If that matters to you, stop reading now.

Before I went to the theater, I read Roger Ebert's review. Lions for Lambs is a hard film to review on its artistic merits because, quite frankly, there aren't many. It's a very talky film. I like talky films. The characters are not complex, the story is hardly subtle and ideology behind the film isn't even thinly disguised. Still, I walked out of the theater thinking about the movie.

The characters really function as representatives of the major forces that combined to form the American involvement in Iraq. From a "liberal" point of view, the iconic characters speak the "truth." Still, the real question is the implied question, that never is voiced.

Robert Redford, who also directs, plays a university professor of political science who one morning confronts a bright student about his apathetic attitude. The student's fundamental response is very existential: what is the point if the result is the same? Throughout the movie, the professor and the student circle around this question, and the best answer that the professor can give is "At least you will have done something."

The student's response then is, "Well, why shouldn't I live the good life? It's not my fault that I'm smart enough to figure out how to live the good life." (I paraphrase here.) To which the professor responds, "What good is a $90,000 Bentley if there are no roads to drive on? If there is not gas to fill the tank?"

And, of course those are valid, important questions.

But the deeper question really is, "What have you done, or what will you do that entitles you to the Bentley in the first place?" The better question is, "At whose expense do you receive that Bentley?"

Those are the fundamental questions that I think many people, particularly of my generation, are afraid to answer. I am, therefore I'm entitled. When I graduated from college there was a shocking number of my classmates who moved right back home to Mom and Dad. One of my friends died at home. They did so because home was comfortable and it eased the responsibility of repaying student loans.

But, is the easy way the best way? I wonder what might have been lost in their characters by not learning to fend for themselves. I wonder what might have been lost in my character because of the struggle I endured establishing myself. And then I compare my struggle to real struggle in other parts of the world and I'm ashamed that I would even begin to compare the challenges I faced in the same light of a contemporary in another part of the world.

Essentially, the film ends posing the question, "What are you going to do with your privilege, power, and wealth?" Yes, it's an easy political question, an obvious question. But it's a question that really has to be asked and the American people are responsible for answering, and we are responsible for avoiding it.