Gun-running is bad and the people who do it
aren't nice. That, in a nutshell, is the message
in Andrew Niccol's preachy and moralizing
drama that is a faint echo of the similarly
themed but far superior 1981 film "The Dogs
of War," which featured a superb and subtle
performance by Christopher Walken as a
morally conflicted gun-runner.
Nicolas Cage,
giving a lazy performance, is the main player
here, a Ukrainian-American named Yuri Orlov
who, initially facing the camera and narrating
throughout the movie, tells the story of his
entry and quick rise in the world of the
gun-runners who fuel all the wars and
conflicts taking place across the globe. Yuri,
however, also craves some respectability,
which comes in the form of a wife, Ava (Bridget
Moynahan), whom he seduces under false
pretenses, posing as a successful,
above-board businessman. Unlike Ava,
however, his honest but drug-addicted brother
Vitali (Jared Leto) isn't prepared to look away
from how Yuri really makes his dough and
functions as the conscience of the film, a
dreary conceit in an obvious movie.
Contrived, predictable and for the most part
dramatically wan, "Lord of War" does hint at an
absurdity beneath the proceedings, evident in
some clever lines and imaginative situations.
Had Niccol opted to play up the surrealistic,
blackly comic aspects of his tale, he might
have crafted a witty "Dr. Strangelove" for the
21st century. As it is, his film, whose timeline
conveniently skirts 9/11, is mundane at best,
and a waste of good actors such as Leto and
Ian Holm (as one of Yuri's rivals), and bad
ones, like Moynahan, who's typically dull. For a
movie dealing with so much explosive
firepower, "Lord of War" is a damp squib.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Jared
Leto, Bridget
Moynahan, Ian Holm and Ethan Hawke.
Directed and written by Andrew Niccol.
Produced by Phillippe Rousselot, Andrew
Niccol, Nicolas Cage, Norman Golightly, Andy
Grosch and Chris Roberts. A Lions Gate
release. Drama. Rated R for strong violence,
drug use, language and sexuality. Running
time: 122 min
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