Was Robert Redford ever a good director? That is the question i asked myself as i sat and watched, barely able to restrain myself from throwing a brick at my TV after only 25 minutes, his latest film about US foreign policy.

Yes, i remember fondly Ordinary People (80), The Milagro Beanfield War (88) and Quiz Show (94), but upon closer inspection, his directing career has been on the whole fairly average. I think Redford’s acting career in the 60s and 70s is what established him in my and in many others’ psyche as an institution, somewhat of a Hollywood legend who could do no wrong. But his directing efforts and choices of roles for the past 15 years, along with some interesting insights into his personality as revealed in Down and Dirty Pictures, insights which by the way make complete sense when compared to his consistently controlling and unemotional acting style, would indicate that, perhaps, Redford should be demoted to average status as both a director and as an actor.

Lions for Lambs profoundly lacks any subtlety and feels that it could have been written and directed by any C level film student. The film has some of the most tedious, arrogant, boring and embarassing scenes in recent memory, and 90% of them include Redford himself as some kind of Ueber-cool teacher trying to preach some mechanical, sanctimonious nonsense to an irritating student. I have no idea how Redford possibly saw any flow and sense of realism in these scenes. They are so badly written that i was gasping in exasperation. And there are the scenes between Cruise and Streep, which are barely more intelligent in terms of conveying a message. Cruise actually provides the only interesting performance in the entire film. Even Streep seems to be drowning, managing to come up for air only once or twice. Finally, a third story about 2 GIs in Afghanistan gives us the required dose of action, as if Redford was concerned that we would be bored by all the talking and that we would misinterpret his intentions and assume that he hates the US armed forces.

I won’t even go into the details of his liberal, anti-Bush message, as this film doesn’t deserve it. Which is a shame because i agree with what Redford has to say. It’s just too bad he doesn’t know how to say it.