I think when I first saw the trailers for Robert Redford’s (Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It) Lions for Lambs, I thought it was a movie I had to see. The previews made the film look exciting, and it featured an A-list cast. Well, when the movie’s commercials became 15-second clips after the first week, and it scored a whopping 27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, the need to see it quickly waned. The movie earned just $15 million at the box office. Box office earnings don’t necessarily reflect a film’s quality, but this movie was expected to generate significant revenue. While the production costs of this movie were low (I’ll explain below), stars like Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise commanded high-dollar figures for their appearances. This wasn’t a little indie movie. MGM produced this movie. On top of a film that was received so poorly by critics was a plot (stories about the war in the Middle East, especially politically driven ones) that had consistently kept moviegoers away back in the early 2000s. Lions for Lambs was a decent movie, but certainly not a great one. And it was by no means as exciting or as drama-filled as the trailers made it out to be. Lions for Lambs is a dialogue-driven movie that succeeds because of its excellent cast.

Lions for Lambs is told as three separate, simultaneous stories. Two of these stories are most likely told in real time, while the third probably occurs over a 12-36 hour period (it’s difficult to say exactly). The third story likely started just before the other two and ended just after. The third story is the most engrossing of the three. It is the only one with actual action. The first and second stories are driven solely by dialogue and play out well thanks to the quality of the performances. The otherwise slightly dry tale comes across as more alive because of the players involved. This takes away from the movie as much as it adds to it, because we become entranced by the acting more than by what they are saying.

In one story, a professor (Redford) at a high-end university in California tries to get a talented and promising, but increasingly disinterested and truant student (a young Andrew Garfield –The Amazing Spider-Man, Never Let Me Go) in his political science class to become more engaged and become more aware of the events surrounding his life. Professor Stephen Malley (Redford) does his best to be a psychologist to determine why Todd (Garfield) has stopped coming to his class. He has so much promise and wonders what has made his prize student so apathetic, to which Todd replies, “What’s the point of what I do? None of it matters.” To counter Todd’s indifferent attitude, Malley tells his pupil the story of two former students of his, two of the most inspiring and memorable he ever taught.

Meanwhile, in Washington, DC, Republican senator Jasper Irving (Cruise – Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Minority Report) invites respected newspaper journalist Janine Roth (Streep –Doubt, August: Osage County) to discuss an emerging military initiative that will guarantee victory in Afghanistan. Irving and Roth have had a respectful working relationship over the years, and he would like her to report on this rather than the dire news that comes out each day about events overseas. The military strategy, as Jasper explains, involves reaching the high grounds in Afghanistan before the Taliban can get there. This consists of deploying troops earlier in a less-than-ideal environment. The weather is unpredictable, and the terrain is not clearly identifiable due to the snow.

Nonetheless, if successful, controlling the passes at these mountains and preventing Taliban troop movements is crucial to winning the war. The biggest problem with this storyline is that you would think that Jasper has invented glasses that could peer into every Taliban hideout in the world and know exactly where each member of the militia is. Deploying troops at favorable spots before an enemy can get there is hardly a groundbreaking strategy. Nonetheless, Jasper tries to sell it to Janine as any politician would. When Janine asks when this strategy will be deployed, he replies, “It already has.”

Finally, we see this military strategy play out as two idealist soldiers, Ernest (Michael Pena – Crash, End of Watch) and Arian (Derek Luke – Friday Night Lights, Antwone Fisher), implement Jasper’s strategy on an Afghanistan mountaintop, only for things to go awry. The pair ends alone on top of one of these passes with limited ammunition and an unlikely hope of rescue. As Taliban forces encircle, we get the only real drama of the film. Though not as well known as the other prominent actors in the movie at the time, Pena and Luke hold their own and are not only the film’s heroes but also the only two characters we care about.