Lions for Lambs (2007)

Robert Redford’s piercing blue eyes are piercing.  And blue.  (Damn but that’s a hot man right there.)

Tom Cruise plays the very special brand of crazy he’s so gosh darned good at.  (See his clever take-off of religious psychos in the form of the recently released $cientology parody video for another example –  what do you mean that wasn’t a parody?  — Fine, but he’s playing the same kind of crazy-eyed role here.  He really is a very good actor, braincrazy or not.)

Michael Peña, though, helped make this movie much more appealing to me.  He has such warmth about his screen presence.  I reckon he helped make Shooter as well.

The story is two angles of the same story (and two threads of one of those angles), with a political science prof (Redford) talking to a promising but underachieving young student, while two former students of his (Peña & the very good Derek Luke) are on a mission in Waronterroristan, and at the same time a Senator (Cruise) dishes about his new military strategy to a longserving journalist (Meryl Streep), the same military strategy that has dictated the mission the boys are on.

The movie felt short, like it wasn’t even really a movie at all.  Like it was a one shot TV special or something.  These hour and a half movies just don’t taste right to me.

And yet, it was still very good.  (Even if the ending left something to be desired.)

(Parenthesis.)