Robert Redford and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan hope to open channels of discussion about the current state of the world and our relationship to it with Lions For Lambs, the new high-powered drama starring Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Redford himself. The film intercuts only three scenes, all happening simultaneously and in real-time. We watch a journalist (Streep) interviewing a politician (Cruise) with a new plan of attack in Afghanistan. We watch that plan going into effect, and two soldiers (Derek Luke and Michael Pena) getting tragically stuck behind enemy lines. We watch a professor (Redford) try to sway the apathy of a student (Andrew Garfield) whom he believes has the potential to be more than society demands him to be. We watch these scenes unfold, but do we learn anything? Are we inspired? Do we care? Or will we remain as apathetic as Redford's stubborn student? Those questions lead to some tricky problems with Lions For Lambs, a film with important subject matter, but ultimately not enough ambition to recommend.

Lions For Lambs is most frustrating in its simplicity. Almost feeling like the research notes that Carnahan compiled while working on The Kingdom (another Middle East film he wrote this season), Lambs tosses softballs underhand when you want it to whip a political fastball across the plate. Wouldn't it be great to see a modern political film that doesn't ask for discussion but rather outright demands it? A film that says "enough is enough, action needs to be taken about x, y, and z"? If you've read a single article in The New Yorker or are even vaguely familiar with The New York Times, you won't get anything new from Lions For Lambs, which makes the whole endeavor feel like a massively wasted opportunity, a missed chance to incite something in a generation that has yet to be led into protest or (sadly) even conversation.

You walk out of Lambs with the sense that journalists feed the agendas of politicians (and vice versa), teenagers are apathetic, and some good men are getting into some big trouble overseas. If you didn't know any of that by now, where the hell have you been the last few years? Remember the backlash against Crash? The whole theory that Paul Haggis' theme as a writer was no deeper than "racism is bad"? Lions For Lambs has a similarly frustrating lowest common denominator sensation, as if it's trying so hard to appeal to everyone in order to start a discussion that it loses all relevancy. Redford may be well intentioned, but Lions For Lambs comes across as a toothless primer for water-cooler conversation rather than a potent, political piece of filmmaking that might actually inspire some of the people in our country who should really be doing more of the talking.

Having said all of that, it's tough to completely dismiss a film this well-made. On an acting level, Lions For Lambs is flawless. Redford has always been "an actor's director," consistently pulling brilliant performances out of his ensembles, and Lambs features some of the best work by Tom Cruise in years. Pena, Luke, and Garfield are all very good, and Meryl Streep takes an underwritten role and makes it fascinating. Cruise and Streep are so engaging that they almost merit recommending the film just as an acting exercise. If you're interested in watching two masters at work, go see Lions For Lambs, but don't be upset if you leave talking about Tom and Meryl instead of who you should really be talking about - George and Osama.