Fall films turn to political themes

"The Valley of Elah," released earlier this month, began a season of films about politics and war.

The 2008 election is still more than a year away. But judging from this fall's movie schedule, Hollywood filmmakers believe the time has come to capitalize on a lame-duck presidency and unfavorable public sentiment toward the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In coming weeks, Hollywood is releasing a slew of films that deal with current geopolitical issues. They include "The Kingdom," with Jamie Foxx as the leader of an FBI antiterrorist team; "Lions for Lambs," featuring Tom Cruise as a senator crafting foreign policy; and "Charlie Wilson's War," the story of a former congressman's activities in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

Studio executives say they believe intelligent audiences are ready for thought-provoking movies, especially after a highly successful popcorn-fare summer. The timing of these releases, which run through the end of the year, is largely a coincidence.

Moviegoers haven't always embraced films about politics and war. They often come up short at the box office despite critical raves.

Critics say Hollywood, with its distinct liberal bias, lacks credibility when it comes to making political films. Some executives wonder if moviegoers confronted with grim realities on the nightly news will want to see fictionalized versions of them as entertainment. "I am concerned about viewer fatigue," says Chris Carlisle, president of domestic theatrical marketing at New Line Cinema, which is releasing "Rendition" on Oct. 19. "A lot of people don't want to hear another thing about what's wrong with the government."

Hollywood's geopolitical tilt is a departure from the fall television season, which is dominated by lighter fare, and it represents a frontier for filmmakers, who have generally waited until long after great global events to take critical looks.

Jonathan Kuntz, a professor of film history at the school for Theater, Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles, says he believes the catalyst for this change of attitude was the success of Michael Moore's modest $6 million documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11," which took in $222 million worldwide and effectively broke the unspoken Hollywood taboo against attacking current events.

One of this year's films, "Lions for Lambs," was developed and polished into its final form in about one year, an uncharacteristic speed for a major Hollywood movie. The movie, which stars Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, who also directed the film, details the interplay between two soldiers in Afghanistan and the impact back home.

Another recent release, "In the Valley of Elah," sets a murder mystery against the backdrop of the war in Iraq.

Gavin Hood, the South Africa-born director of New Line's "Rendition," says he hopes his movie will be "an emotional and thrilling piece of entertainment that will also generate discussion." The movie, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon, is about secret CIA interrogation policies and a family torn apart when a green-card carrying husband is quietly arrested by the U.S. government and disappears.

While many of the details about government tactics in the film are unknown to the public, Hood says it will have to walk a fine line to bring in moviegoers. "There's always a challenge if a film is perceived as political; people may react poorly if it's preachy in some way," he says.