Read The Times review of Lions for Lambs

Two of the biggest screen idols walked the red carpet together for the first time in Leicester Square last night at the world premiere of their controversial political thriller.

Between them Tom Cruise and Robert Redford have created some of Hollywood’s most memorable heroes, from The Sundance Kid and The Great Gatsby to Maverick, the gung-ho fighter pilot in Top Gun, and Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible series. Now they are playing opposite each other in Lions for Lambs, directed by Redford, which was chosen as The Times Gala at The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival.

With Meryl Streep also in the cast, the film is one of the biggest Hollywood movies to have had its world premiere in London and an indicator of the festival’s clout. It intertwines the stories of a hawkish senator (Cruise), a journalist (Streep), an idealistic professor (Redford) and two soldiers fighting in Afghanistan to explore the United States’ approach to the War on Terror. The film has been under attack by conservatives in America.

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Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wrote the screenplay, said yesterday: “People who haven’t even seen the movie have been making pronouncements about why nobody should see it. But my ambition was just to contribute another level to this debate that needs to be had about this war and whether another British or American life is worth it.”

Politics was far from the minds of most of the thousands of fans who pressed up to the barriers around the Odeon cinema last night. Cruise had insisted on building two hours into the schedule to meet his public. He spent 1½ hours talking to people in the crowd, chatting to their friends and relatives on proffered mobile phones and being photographed with fans.

The post-September 11 conflicts have inspired many Hollywood projects, although the box-office reception for films such as Michael Winterbottom’s critically acclaimed A Mighty Heart and Peter Berg’s Saudi action film The Kingdom has been lukewarm so far.

The film is a launchpad for Cruise’s new career as a movie mogul. Lions for Lambs is the first film to come out of United Artists since he helped to revive the studio.

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