I saw a great film on Saturday. It wasn’t Lions for Lambs. No. While Robert Redford’s War on Terror film touched some interesting ideas – political discourse, the role of the media, and where your average Joe America fits into the big picture – it treated them in an insultingly facile manner.
If you’re interested in these themes, you will have thought about them beyond what this film shows you. Flick on the news and you can see that politicians are smarmy and calculating, that big television networks consider that reading out government press releases constitutes broadcasting news, and that despite its billions spent on defence the US ain’t making much progress in Afghanistan.
And if you’re not interested in these ideas… well then you’re probably not about to run out and see the film, are you?

In compensation for Redford’s film being so disappointingly weak, we headed for FNAC in search of Michael Mann’s The Insider. It took a while to track it down – over here they call it El Dilema – but it was worth the wait. I recommend you hire the DVD, and leave Lions for Lambs till it comes out on free-to-air TV and you can be bothered taking the time to set the video.

Other posts by Katie Llanos-Small