Clearly, anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a movie reviewer has to try to set aside personal prejudices before seeing a film. However, like most things in life, that is easier said than done.

For example, it does not escape me that my recent negative review of Saw IV happened to reflect my personal aversion to these types of torture/mutilation films. While I certainly tried to view that film with an open mind, my negative review of it subjects me to legitimate criticism that I never really gave it a chance. While I can deny that until I am blue in the face, I am smart enough to know that a lingering question concerning my objectivity will always linger.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that despite the wide criticisms of Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs, I genuinely liked it. In saying that, it is important to note that any potential viewer has to approach this movie as if you are going to see a stage play. This is in no way a traditional movie by any definition.

To begin with, all of the action takes place in basically three settings. They are Robert Redford's cluttered office at a California University where he teaches; Tom Cruise's senate office; and a snowy mountain top in Afghanistan where two American soldiers (former students of Redford's) are isolated as they await either rescue or their death.

As to my lead-in for this review, I have never hidden my criticism and outright disgust with our government's foreign misadventure in Iraq. Started on deceptions, if not outright lies, its implementation has been bungled from the beginning. The cost in American lives, money and world standing remain devastating.

This movie is a searing critique of that debacle, something that most American filmgoers will not want to experience. Since most Americans have long ago turned a deaf ear to that fiasco, why would they want to go have our mistakes reexamined in a movie?

Unfortunately, we have long witnessed in this country the sad parade of critics of our Iraqi foreign policy being shouted down with ridicule and invective. The Bush/Cheney duo, two men who admittedly dodged overseas combat during Vietnam through multiple deferments and family connections, have skillfully hidden behind our brave soldiers to shield any meaningful public analysis or criticism of the war policy itself.

If Ambassador Joe Wilson criticizes the President's State of the Union Message, then out his CIA agent wife. If the Dixie Chicks dare utter a brief criticism of the President before a concert in London at the start of this war, then unleash the talk show demagogues and corporate business allies to all but ruin their careers. If Cindy Sheehan demands accountability for the tragic loss of her son in combat, then turn her personal devastation into public ridicule.

To this day, with the exception of isolated books and documentaries that unveiled the deception and ineptitude lying at the heart of this war, no one has stood tall to the Saurons who started it and their talk show bullies that serve as their marauding Orcs. But Redford has the courage to stand tall, and his movie dares to speak the truth even at the clear risk of being a small voice crying out in the wilderness.

Under the watchful eye of photographs of Bush, Cheney and Rice, Tom Cruise gives a riveting performance as a Republican congressman who remains a true believer. While there is no question that Cruise personally is an odd little man with odd little habits, he remains a skillful actor who never shortchanges his audience.

In this case, his entire performance consists of an interview he gives in his senate office with a powerful national reporter cleverly played by Meryl Streep. No one who has paid attention to how this bogus war was sold to the American public can miss the resemblance of Streep to Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who was conned by the Bush Administration into printing their misleading propaganda on the front pages of the premier newspaper of this country during the lead-up to war.

Like Ms. Miller, the national press allowed themselves to be used by the Bush Administration, and it remains unforgivable that they abandoned their role to independently ask questions and challenge the veracity of the administration's claims. Cruise is wonderful as he again tries to use the press to sell a new war strategy (does the word surge ring a bell?), while Streep is subtly at her best as a reporter who, in the immortal words of the Who, resolutely "won't be fooled again."

Redford's scenes largely concern his conversation with a young student who has become bored and alienated with the entire political process. Pay attention to the exchange that occurs between he and Andrew Garfield, the student in question, as it seems to be a direct challenge to the critics who are dismissing this film as having little, if any, merit. Redford is not just calling Garfield to wake up and pay attention; he is calling for the American people to do the same.

In a particularly marvelous moment, he challenges Garfield's disenchantment which is based on congress' widespread corruption and tawdry sexual escapades. Redford reminds him that the government not only is using the apathy of the public to their advantage, they indeed are counting on it. This is the MasterCard moment for this angry, in-your-face political drama.

Quite frankly, most of us have a difficult time feeling any connection to our representatives in Washington of either party. We have senators with wide stances in airport restrooms; members of the House treating pages as their personal sex toys; and other members selling their offices to defense contractors and corrupt lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. But Redford reminds us that the more we are turned off and become uninvolved, the easier it is for our leaders to govern without any accountability to the public.

I care about Iraq, and not just because my 21 year old nephew is in Baghdad with the Marines. I care because we are throwing young American lives and an enormous amount of our financial resources into a dark hole that is producing little more than ill will around the world. I care because we are continuing this madness for little more than the sustained vanity of those who started it.

Unlike Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah or Gavin Hood's Rendition, Redford doesn't pretend to mask his political message in the veneer of a fictional drama. It is sparse and direct, and every college age kid in this country should see it. This war is an undeniable fraud, and Redford pulls no punches in saying so. This movie is not so much a great film as it is an invaluable civic lesson.

And for those of you who still support Bush's policy, let me ask you a simple question. If this is truly a war for the survival of civilization as we know it, why are we fighting it with only a hundred and fifty thousand troops? As in the Civil War, World War I and World War II, why don't we have a draft where we marshal our national resources and bring everything we've got into this alleged titanic struggle? As in those wars, why don't we call upon the nation to sacrifice for the greater good?

You know the answer to that question, and so does Redford. This war isn't about the survival of civilization, and you know it. This war is about three dollar a gallon gas, billons of dollars in profits for politically connected companies like Blackwater and Halliburton, torture, rendition, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

It is about salvaging the reputation of the Bush/Cheney crowd so that they, to paraphrase Ali McGraw in Love Story, can say that "preemptive war means never having to say your sorry." You want "fair and balanced", then go watch the Fox channel. But if you want a wake-up call to help end our sleep walking through history, see Redford's film.