Tom Cruise, the hollywood megastar and Academy Award winner Robert Redford get serious in their new film "Lions For Lambs", the film based on a platoon of soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a senator, a reporter, and a college professor and the Hollywood's latest take on U.S. foreign policy and the military fallout from the September 11, 2001 attacks.

 The film brings together what at first seem three separate story lines, playing out simultaneously, to look at the sacrifice of U.S. soldiers, the relationship between politics and the media, and the need for young Americans to take a stand.  The first strand has an up-and-coming Republican senator, played by Cruise, trying to sell an "exclusive" over Washington's new strategy in the war in Afghanistan to a television journalist, interpreted by Meryl Streep.

 With the only real action happening on the Afghan battlefield, the film's biggest challenge is its lengthy dialogues.