| Product: |
Lord Of War (DVD) |
| Date: |
08/02/06 (165 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: The opening sequence, the photography.
Disadvantages: The main character, somewhat depressing when thinking about the reality
Lord of War allows Nicholas Cage to ply his trademark tough, quirky persona to the max. He plays Yuri, an American of Ukranian extraction, who decides that his career path, and his way out of Brighton Beach (the district of New York not the place on our coast!), will be as an arms dealer.
He has no intention of spending his life working in his parents restaurant with his brother and he realises that selling guns is something there is always a need for in the, alleged, stronghold of the Russian Mafia.
Yuri starts off small, with the assistance of his brother, selling guns to local gangsters but with the fall of the USSR and the independence of many small nation states Yuri uses his family connections to tap into the stockpiles of Russian weapons left with Generals who no longer have an army to fight with or a country to defend. He is soon in the Ukraine talking to, and dealing with, an uncle and is buying up 1000’s of AK47s’, ammunition, tanks and even helicopter gunships!
Yuri is on the road to riches, selling arms to third world despots is making him a lot of money. His family has no idea what he really does for a living, or that the money they live on is literally blood money, and he is constantly outsmarting the dogged DEA(?) agent Jack Valentine (A seriously under used Ethan Hawke)
Will Yuri realise the error of his ways? Will Valentine catch him or will one of his clients be the death of him? Lord of War could go any way and that is its main strength.
Having said that there is one thing that I really do not like in a film, even more than the clichéd over used plots of a lot of Hollywood films is a movie whose lead character is not only the complete focus but is also morally contemptible. You cannot have any sympathy for Yuri, or any connection to him. You don’t like him because there is nothing to like about him, his lifestyle is his choice, not something he was dropped into. When I see a film like this (History of Violence was another) it just leaves me cold, am I supposed to like Yuri or want him to get his comeuppance?
Most of the other characters are not given enough time to really get your interest, though Yuri’s wife, brother, Valentine and the main Warlord (Lord of War as he translates it) all show an inkling of promise
The odd thing about this film though is that it is kinda enjoyable all the same, even with these major problems. It is fast paced, action packed and has a interesting premise behind it.
I did enjoy a lot of the film, the confrontations between Yuri and Valentine were a script/dialogue lovers dream. Cage and Hawke played these scenes so well that you could feel Yuri’s smirking pleasure and Valentines frustration, but when it comes down to it I left the cinema feeling…… well I don’t know… I had just watched a film about an unlikeable gun runner who showed no remorse for what he was doing, ‘not my problem what they do with the guns’ was his oft quoted comment, and I really didn’t like the Cage character at all. From my own moral standpoint I hated him and his own set of morals and this affected my own view of the film.
I was also confused over the writers aims, they seem to be confused about what they were saying as well. Maybe it was just me but they seemed to be pushing a lot of antigun facts while scripting a gun fetishist’s dream. The dichotomy between the two seemed to clash many a time.
That said they created THE best opening I have seen in a long time. A lengthy opening that could be called ‘The Life of a Bullet’. During the opening minutes you go from seeing a bullet being made in a factory, following it through its ‘life’. Being packed into a crate, shipped and then tipped out, loaded and fired. All seen from the viewpoint of the bullet itself! This is very well filmed and highly innovative.
Another highpoint was the use of till sounds as Yuri made money selling guns, these sounds were made to sound like a till but consisted of machine guns shooting off, another nice little touch that stood out and hammered home how he was making his money.
Acting wise Cage is terrific, Hawke is wasted but makes the most of the scenes he is in. Jared Leto as Yuri’s brother is good but again given very little that enables you to understand his character. This is, as I said, the big problem with all the other characters though.
All in all an okay film that just about scrapes 3 stars from me, though it nearly lost them due to its ‘based on real events’ legend tacked on at the end, real events…. Well maybe in the sense that there are gun runners around!
Summary: Nic Cage as a smooth talking gun runner.
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