Lions for Lambs

Cast: Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep

Director: Robert Redford

The Kingdom

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman

Director: Peter Berg

What are the chances of two films dealing with America's West Asia policy, with the same screenwriter and with the director of one of them acting in the other, releasing the same week? Practically nil.

But that said, Lions for Lambs and The Kingdom, both written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, couldn’t be more different. If the first is about winning minds as war on terror becomes a losing battle, the second is about taking action as only America knows it. And both leave you thinking much after the credit rolls are over.

Carnahan gave up his profession and started writing after the cataclysmic events of 9/11, when he felt the need to do something about what had happened. And remarkably for him, his scripts have found their way to these two much-talked-about films in this short span.

How he feels about 9/11 comes across in one of the scenes of Lions for Lambs, when Senator Irving (played by Cruise) tells journalist Janine Roth (Streep): “Do you remember the fear we felt after that day (9/11), about where the next attack would come from? About roads, bridges, schools, nuclear plants? How the colour of the sky looked tinged with terror?”

Carnahan argues for both sides of the debate in the film — the naysayers who ridicule America's folly and hubris as well as pointing out that someone has to do the heavy lifting. He notes that the US definitely does not have all the answers but underlines that not many of us are even considering the questions.

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