Lord of War

Rating: Null/10 (31 October 2007)

There seems to have been relatively few high-profile films made recently about the business of arms trading, which is quite surprising really when you consider the potential for development in the action thriller genre. This attempt to shed some light on the shady goings-on in the trade seeks to be more of a study of the mechanics of the business with the usual soapy trimmings regarding the conflict between the protagonist's business and family life, than a thriller and, in this respect, it succeeds very well. Having said that, the glimpse we are given into a world that would otherwise be closed to us, is a strangely sanitised one. Little insight  other than the manipulations of one particular West African despot  is given into the life-threatening, nerve-jangling danger into which an arms dealer must step every time he tries to sell his wares.
Nicolas Cage plays Yuri Orlov, the son of Ukrainian immigrants (the film fights shy of having its protagonist being a true American. The writer would probably have us believe Orlov's background is instrumental to the direction he takes in life, but the cynic in me can't help thinking that the producers were probably a little worried that the cash tills wouldn't ring so loud if the main character, who after all, profits from the misery and death of others, were home-grown). Cage is not a great actor, and he struggles here which, in a way, testifies to the strength of the script in that it can overcome the usual deficiencies in Cage's performance. A better actor would have had more success in subtly communicating through expression and gesture the personal hell which Orlov  through choice  endures. Everything about him is fake: he lies about his name, and he lies to his family and his trophy wife about what it is that he does for a living. He even seduces his wife with a lie then secretly becomes the only buyer of her ordinary painting when she becomes an artist. There is a rich vein to explore here, but unfortunately Cage muffs it.
To survive in his business, Yuri can't afford a conscience so he has one provided for him in the form of his younger brother, ably played by Jared Leto. His conscience, who was once his partner, snorts copious amounts of drugs and has copious amounts of sex with women with names like Candy, and his fate is as predictable as the source of Yuri's eventual 'downfall.' Where this predictability is a (perhaps unavoidable) weakness, the repercussions (or eventual lack of them) is the key to what the whole film is about, and has a veracity about it that is rarely found in mainstream movies. It sums Yuri up more succinctly than the previous 90 minutes of heavily-narrated exposition, and goes some way to explaining the bland, suited disguise behind which he hides.