A movie in search of a script

Rating: 5/10 (1 October 2005)

Much as I hate to go against the tide here, the best part of the movie was for me the opening which depicted the life of a bullet. Breathtaking in the simple way that it showed how the mundane, anonymous business of manufacturing weapons can end. The cinematography here and throughout the movie is breathtaking. "Wow!" I thought, "this is going to bee a helluva movie." Then began Nicolas Cage's relentless voice-over. Other characters appear; Cage's brother, his parents, his dream girl. None of them have more than the most rudimentary character arcs. Relationships are presented rather than developed. The denouement is heartbreakingly predictable and largely senseless. Mayhap the point of the movie was that arms trafficking has become banal and everyday. If so, it made it in such a low key, bloodless way that even that was lost.