Lord of War

Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) is an Ukrainian immigrant living Little Odessa in New York. Vitaly (Jared Leto) is his brother. His dream girl is the neighborhood beauty queen Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan). After witnessing a gangland hit, he decides to start selling weapons along with his brother. Meanwhile, he's being hounded by incorruptible Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke) and fellow gunrunner Simeon Weisz (Ian Holm).

I love the matter-of-factness to Cage's narration. The story is fascinating and spans the world. But it's Cage that sells it. He still has the charm. Before you realize it, you're rooting for an amoral death dealer, a Lord of War. Jared Leto is terrific as the drugged out brother who's struggling with more than his addiction. This is one of the better black comedies with an anti-gun message.

I was really surprised that Hollywood was able to tackle a huge moral morass like the black market arms trade and leave the moral issues in the audience's lap. Yuri (played by Nicholas Cage) goes to work in a particularly ugly world. When he says that he's had a bad day at the office, you can be pretty sure that someone has been shot or blown up. At any event, what I liked about this picture was that although Yuri obviously has some moral issues to wrestle with, he does so on his own terms, and we are left to figure out the rights and the wrongs. Since most movie-goers don't like to leave a movie with food for thought, this picture may not play very broadly in theaters, but I hope it gets a good audience on video. I also though that Jared Leto was wonderful as Yuri's tragically addicted and unhappy brother.

"Lord of War" is about a man named Yuri (Nicolas Cage) who in the early 80's decides that he doesn't want to just work in a restaurant for the rest of his life and decides that instead he wants to be an arms dealer. Once he makes his first sale, Yuri is hooked on the feeling of making big money for selling firearms, and continues to sell the firearms but he wants more and more of a profit and more and more of a challenge. It's not until an Interpol agent (Ethan Hawke) is hot on Yuri's case that he begins to question the nature of his business and whether what he is doing for a living is moral and if he should be responsible for the hands these weapons get into and what they are used for. A powerful performance by Nicolas Cage, as well as a great thought-provoking movie ensues… I love movies like this one for a few reasons. The main reason is that for the most part you can't predict what is going to happen next or where the film is going. Another reason I like movies like this is because it's powerful and its makes you think. And lastly I like a movie like this because it doesn't end in a typical way and actually leaves you feeling blown-away and surprised.

The filmed starred Nicolas Cage who lately has done of some the best work of his career. His performance here is top-notch and powerful. There are so many other people in the film including Jared Leto, Ian Holm, Ethan Hawke and Bridget Moynahan to name a few who are also very good at the roles they played. This film is written and directed by Andre Niccol the same man who wrote "The Terminal" and "The Truman Show" so I guess I shouldn't be so surprised by why I actually liked this film so much, it had a good lead actor and a good screenwriter.

I guess this movie all comes down to how open minded the movie-goers who see this are. I guess it also amounts to where you stand on the political fence. The film is not for those who don't have an open mind about things that are going on in the world today. The movie is based on true events so be warned that some of things shown in the film are happening in real life or did happen at one point in time. To be honest, I do believe what the film states in the end, it doesn't seem at all far fetched. It's like Yuri says in the film "it's not our war and no matter what we do we can't stop it" and that's true it's like smoking kills people every day but there are people who run cigarette companies everyday knowing that they are killing people every single day and getting people addicted to something that in the end will kill them. Is that moral? What can we do to stop it? These are questions this film asks and leaves it to the viewer to decide on.

So in the end, this movie isn't for everyone. In a sense this film is kind of like the movie "Blow" because it's about a man who feels his life isn't complete without selling something that is bad. He has everything he could ever want but still needs to sell the firearms. It's an amazing and powerful story which I feel really puts things in perspective as far as us Americans look at things. Nicolas Cage's performance is incredible as he seems to not care at all for the people's lives he puts at stake every day and when it comes to his own life he still seems unemotional and doesn't seem to worry. Personally I think this is one of the best film's of year and is in fact just as good as the other political drama currently released called "The Constant Gardner" so if you have an open mind about things and enjoy movies that will make you think, well check out "Lord of War" because it's well worth the price of admission at the theater.

MovieManMenzel's final rating for "Lord of War" is a 9/10.

Lord of War is about an arms dealer named Yuri Orlov who confronts the morality of his work while being chased by an Interpol agent. This is a very interesting film brought by director and writer of the film, Andrew Niccol (Gattaca). This is another great film of his that will boost up his career even more. Nicolas Cage puts up another great performance of the year and although his acting is very ostentatious, his narrating just like in The Weather Man, which came out a couple months later, is perfect. The dialogue is very good and the script couldn't be any better. Most of all, I clearly gave respect to Andrew Niccol, because honestly, he deserves the most credit out of any one who worked on the film. My hat goes off for him. Overall, great film of 2005 and I'll be paying more attention to Andrew Niccol's movies. I highly recommend it.

Hedeen's Outlook: 8.5/10 ***+ B+

A kind of dark comedy concerning a crazy, rogue arms trader (Nicholas Cage) and delivers one of his best ever performances (in a film quite like no other). It contains a very serious message throughout and some highly quotable lines to, such as "The 'AK-47' being the biggest weapon of mass destruction, as it's killed more than anything else". The tile is a clever word play and a featured mad dictator who gets everything backwards, such as "Bath of Blood", instead of 'Bloodbath' and "Lord of War" replacing 'Warlord' and so on. Has a ring of a terrible truth, with death, destruction and murder, being such a lucrative trade.