Deadly kangaroos...

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2007)

This film can be taken as a quite enjoyable cocktail of irreverence and cynicism, vilifying human nonsensical inclination to auto-destruction. What can on the other hand be irritating if not disappointing, is that it sometimes awkwardly (and dangerously) oscillates on the edge of becoming moralistic, and that I mean in the nauseous way of typical Hollywoodian productions.
It tells the relentless ascension of a remorseless and gifted arms dealer (Nicolas Cage). Which goes from the early 80's, in cold war, to the first years of the 21st century, through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the changes that it implied in the global geopolitical deal. Only, this parcel of history is here seen from the point of view of the weapon-selling business, and the end of USSR merely means its abandon in headless and lawless ex-satellite countries of the gigantic stock of weapons accumulated for a war that had never been to happen, and the shifting of the main market for weapons from the borders between American and Soviet zones of influence, to the unstable countries of Africa. Thus the opportunity offered by the former in regard to the latter greatly helps the main character in making a fortune. But in his way towards this questionable professional success, he loses his wife and son, brings his young brother (Jared Leto) to his death, is disowned by its parents, and almost put in jail by a interpol cop who has chased him for years (Ethan Hawke)... without changing his intention of selling death as long as men will be ready to pay so generously the means to kill other men.
Hence an interesting screenplay. My attention was all the more attracted when I saw that it was written and directed by Andrew Niccol, who also made the excellent Gattaca. I quite enjoyed the first hour or so, during which I mainly appreciated the depicting of the total absence of moral restraints in the greediness of the main character, his cynicism as well as that displayed in the telling of his story. And conversely I was equally infuriated when the whole took a despicable moralistic tone, by showing the same character confronted to his conscience, facing the "horrible" consequences of his activity, like a little Liberian girl with a severed arm asking him, "the white man", if her hand will grow back. In at least as bad taste the attempts to explain the conflicts in African countries (if such a generalisation is possible) by simplistic considerations, or the absurd character of a weapons dealer who "takes sides". It almost reminded me the asinine "Blood Diamond", at that point, and I was desperately hoping that it does not end in the same kind of braindead cloying absurdities, apparently so much appreciated by US audience. Happily it didn't, and the last 10 minutes were quite in tune with the beginning. Andrew Niccol even chose to finish with the same somewhat apocalyptic scene that had started the film, which was very inspired.
Besides the direction is globally good. I much liked the scenes accompanying the credits, at the beginning, showing the lifecycle of a bullet. The zones of conflicts and stocks of weapons, throughout the film, are extremely realistic, with sets more real than the real thing (according to the trivia, they are actually the real thing, sometimes) and lights very finely worked. There are nonetheless a number of defects and criticisable choices: some little elaborated twists in the plot (for example when Cage escapes a fighter in a cargo plane), a tendency to too easily and unnecessarily introduce sex scenes, the use of the same actors without any make-up throughout a chronology that covers 20 years, the chronologically little plausible fact that Yuri marries a woman who was already a glamour icon when he was ten, etc.
Concerning the actors, Nicolas Cage is good in the leading role. Jared Leto as well, although his part is quite limited. Even thinner are those of Bridget Moynahan (Cage's wife), or Ian Holm. The role of the idealistic police officer was well suited to Ethan Hawke, with its angel face, and he personified it with conviction. But I was mainly touched by the Charles-Taylor-like character of André Baptiste, which enthused me, with his mix of bloody cruelty and calm cynicism. The performance of Eamonn Walker is really dazzling, and in addition served by great lines. The one about the "kangaroos" made me hilarious. He is in fact the perfect complement to Cage's character: if Yuri can sell weapons without the smallest concern about their use, provided that he gets richer, Baptiste can use them without the smallest concern about the cost, provided that it serves his thirst for power. The rest is none of their business.