- The Guardian,
- Friday April 18 2008
A very talky and rather self-important film about Iraq and the state of the union. It's loosely patched together from three separate parts: journalist Meryl Streep gets an interview with creepy rising senator Tom Cruise; professor Robert Redford has a lengthy discussion with a bright but disaffected student; and two of his other students get involved in Cruise's military strategy in Afghanistan.
As in Magnolia, Cruise is far more memorable in his rare villain roles - his shinily self-confident neocon is scarily believable. The film takes issue with the supine media, axis-of-evil style fearmongering and the downgrading of news. None of these will come as a great shock to its probable audience and all of its topics have been covered far better in numerous documentaries (recently The War on Democracy and Why We Fight), while Three Kings said far more about US adventures abroad and said it with wit.
It's been remarked that a number of current affairs feature films have tanked lately. In this case, it's just because the film, well acted and decently directed (by Redford) as it is,just beats around the Bush, coming to no conclusions and providing no solutions. The film's writer Matthew Michael Carnahan will next translate Paul Abbott's TV thriller State of Play for the big screen, with Russell Crowe and Helen Mirren.
