The morality of gun running

Rating: 9/10 (17 February 2006)

What happens when an 'everyday' American decides to leave his boring existence for something more interesting, exciting, and profitable? Well, he becomes a gun runner of course! This is the story of Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage) who, if we are to believe him, is just a man doing his job like anyone else. Supplying guns to the world's dictators, tyrants, and rebel armies without the blink of an eye as if he were selling cars instead of weapons. An everyday job that he assures us that someone else would be doing if he weren't doing it. A point that he stresses throughout the movie and one that becomes the main moral point of the whole movie.
Through their operations in Europe, the Middle East, Afganistan and other such places, Yuri and his brother Vitaly (Jared Leto) find fortune and even infamy. However, while Vitaly drugs himself out due to what is most likely a guilty conscience over the fact that he has aided in the deaths of countless people, Yuri finds himself drawn more into the world that smuggling and profit. It becomes him and soon he has nothing but the 'business' that he runs.
This changes when he has the chance to finally seduce the woman of his dreams, Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan). Having the money, the power, and the connections that he has, he has is able to convince her that he has the fortune that supposedly someone her of caliber deserves. Earning her love and marriage even though she later admits that she would 'rather not know' about what it is he really does to make his money. In a sense, she does what Vitaly does without the drugs. Ava would rather ignore the truth that the comfortable life she now knows is built on lies, deception, and possibly worse.
Things begin to go wrong when Yuri becomes involved with Andre Baptiste Sr. (Eamonn Walker) of Sierre Leone. Also, the determination of young Interpool Agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke) brings in extra pressure which finally leads to the explanation of what Yuri really does to his then 'ignorant' wife Ava. The death of Vitaly at the hands of men loyal to Baptiste, and the loss of Ava, his son, and even his parents signals the near end of a life Yuri has struggled to maintain for decades. Only a sudden burst of 'support' from a unknown Pentagon official, who Yuri 'knows' through past dealings, is able to free Yuri from a life in prison for countless crimes ranging from smuggling to murder. Allowing him to continue his business of supplying weapons to those desire them in spite all that has happened to him.
And here is where the moral of the story comes in. Even after everything he has witnessed, experienced, and lost, Yuri believes with all his heart that he has done nothing wrong. He is a businessman and nothing more. No thoughts of blood on his hands, or of those whom he has helped murder. And this is the point of Lord Of War. That is, there are those who really have no concept of wrong and right.
Even when they have lost everything.
9 out of 10