Lord of War (2005)

Wonderful character development!

How sad is this?

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This movie is lost time and overrated. I saw the first half hour and I am particularly annoyed that you have to accept everything for true. The structure of the story is miserable. The main character played by Nicolas Cage sells weapons but it is not clear where they come from. He has customers all over the world from shadowy areas to which he can deliver weapons. Never is clear how he get this customers. He has an unstable brother with whom he cooperates and who can not bear the wealth when they have succes. He goes to the coke and then goes downhill with him. He tries to help him with a lot of tearjerking brotherlove. An other thing, he gets a handsome woman who does not find his work completely pure and suffers from remorse. This problem also must be resolved. In short, this movie has a machine gun fire of clichés whereby the critical film viewer has dropped out before the end

Cage stars as a rags to riches gunrunner whose lack of scruples leads him into interactions with civil war and unrest all around the world. Cage is there to profit off of all of them. But as his world starts to crumble around him, will Cage learn from his past? To be honest, I was a little shocked by the positive reviews from critics and audiences alike when I went onto the IMDb page after watching the movie. Was I watching the same film? There's not much going on here. The plot is glued together loosely by a series of wars throughout the world and the ever present Nick Cage. The editing in this movie left me scratching my head. Am I suppose to feel bad for Cage's wife and child I've seen for all of two minutes? I guess the message of this movie is we as a society need to focus more on stopping gun sales that help start civil wars and genocides but the film does a poor job of getting its point across.The cinematography is fine but nothing spectacular. The constant voice over from Cage is unnecessary, made worst by the face that Cage was sleepy when read his lines. I was already rolling my eyes by the time the intro of the bullet was over. This movie thought it was a lot smarter than it turned out to be which is unfortunate for the audience.

This film at its core is a character profile of Yuri Orlov. Everything from the plot to the cinematography of this film does an superb job of reflecting Yuri's inner guilt and separation from the terrible acts he preforms. It gives us a strong impression of what Gun Running is like and it's a impression that leaves us the audience down right uncomfortable. The core message of the film is that evil prevails and it pulls no punches in delivering that message. definitely not for the squeamish even though there is little violence Lord of War proves to be far more terrifying than any horror film because it's based on true events. Not that Yuri was a real person he is a amalgamation of real people and events though. Easily one of Nicholas Cages Best films well worth your time if you are interested in dramas or politics. Check out a more in-depth review here were I defend my high rating. There are spoilers in the in-depth review so proceed at your own risk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juigHkMifpo

This film is rather hard to classify. Is it a black comedy? A pseudo documentary? A war film? A drama that studies a really cold-blooded character who does what he does "because he does it best?" I finally settled on Mockumentary.Yet Nicholas Cage pulls it off. He is the most cold-blooded SOB one can imagine: the combination to the container filled with weapons to kill thousands is the birth date of his son. In the end, his brother rebels while they deliver arms, after he sees soldiers hack a woman and child to death with machetes. When the soldiers negotiating the arms deal mow Cage's brother down with machine guns, Cage continues negotiating: why get himself killed, too?It's hard to imagine someone like that can exist, but after all, Cage is just a bigger version of the machete-wielders. And according to the film, just poppycocks compared to the presidents of the US, Russia, France etc, who deal in arms and destruction on a yet greater scale.Indeed at the end of the film, just like these leaders of entire countries, Cage is "too big to fail." He laughs in the face of the justice department agent who captured him with solid evidence in hand, and wants to put Cage behind bars for good. Cage explains to him with a smile what is really going to happen once he leaves the room, and so it does.At which point we return to Cage as the narrator, full circle with the beginning of the film, except now we get to see what makes the crunching sound under his shoes: millions of bullets, just like the one that we followed from manufacture to the skull of a child in the opening credits.The film certainly preaches, but in a way so absurd, matter-of-fact and darkly comedic that it does not appear heavy-handed, merely unbelievable. And yet we know all too well that the events we see in the film, the useless maiming and killing of millions, happened. And the arms to do the deed did come from somewhere.The film sometimes descends into mocking itself, at other times the pieces fall into place too conveniently, so it remains merely very good. But well worth watching, even if you're not into conspiracy theories.