Morals versus Reality

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2006)

I waded through the Lord of War, just last night. The opening scene  "The Life of a Bullet"  paraphrased the theme of the movie. Mankind mindlessly produces the components of war, without moral introspection, or without even thinking about their end use. We ascribe morality only after an event. This is not to say, however, that the production of everything man invents should be evaluated purely on a moral basis. If we did that, we would still be sitting in caves naked, and without fire.
Mankind has had this uncanny ability to turn almost every invention into some kind of weapon. All we have to do is look back to the opening sequence of a film classic  Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here we see the early seeds of mankind bashing in the skulls of rival hominids with a bone clubs. Today, our clubs have evolved into nightmarish, mechanical, mass-produced weaponry. We have always killed one another, its just, that over time, we have improved on our ability accomplish this end.
Yuri Orlov, played exquisitely by Nichols Cage, is simply a very successful opportunist and realist. He knows what his product is, and what it is intended to do. He is simply filling the middleman role in the supply and demand process. If not him, someone else will. Every successful businessman is much like Yuri, maybe not to the same degree, but they almost need to be amoral about how they conduct business, or they are out of business. Do the names Enron or Tyco ring a bell here?
In the scene, where Eva confronts Yuri about what he does, he states: "Its not the money. Its just that I'm good at what I do." There is no such thing as an "honest buck." But, shouldn't Orlov take a certain pride in what he does? We all know what that the weapons produced by every capable government are meant to do. Some regimes simply don't have the capacity to produce their own weapons. Should these governments be left defenseless? Enter the Orlovs of the world.
The beauty of the film, which, by the way, I thought was exceptionally well done, is that it did not moralize. It was not a morality play. Instead, it more like a documentary. The moral issues are left to the audience to resolve. Sure, by our very nature, we will align ourselves with Yuri, his addictive brother Vitaly, the African warlord, or the Interpol agent (played exceedingly well by Ethan Hawke). Every one of them had a defensible reason for doing what they do, albeit naively.
My only criticism of the movie was that it was a bit slow. Otherwise, the content, the acting, storyline, and cinema photography were exceedingly well done. This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. It was entertaining, as well as thought-provoking.