Genius, pure genius

Rating: 9/10 (19 June 2006)

Orlov (Cage) starts this film with an apology, saying that he is who he is, and that he expects no one will think he is not one of the ugliest, dirtiest, most murderous men in the world, because what he is, he confesses, is an illegal arms dealer. With that necessity out of the way, Orlov says he intends to simply tell his story, no matter how much it may offend folks. He just wants to tell the truth about what he did. The film's producers claim that it is based on actual events.
And offend the story does! No political correctness crossed this film's sound stage and survived. Cage's narrative does not simply verge on the obscene, it becomes so in a beautifully written examination of and a near justification for the existence of the private arms dealer. Consider, the film asks us, that the greatest arms traders in the world are the US, the UK, France, China and Russia, and that all five of these countries are the only permanent members of the UN Security Council. That fact itself is enough to help viewers begin to see why middlemen, like Cage's character Orlov, not only survive, but thrive in this war-ridden world.
In a terribly ugly movie, writer and director Andrew Niccol is able to present comedic and sexual scenes that can make a viewer feel sick for realizing he's laughing. Such sharp ability on Niccol's part is what prevents an otherwise shamefully violent gross-out movie from becoming both a compelling piece of self-examination and a powerful expose of the world's true "foreign affairs." Cage continually plays you and me, people who would work for profit if it were to be made and damn the consequences. While doing so, he admits that he is one of the most powerful men in the world, not because he has the guns, but because it is human nature to kill each other. "That's why all the earliest skeletons of humans have arrowheads in them," Cage's commentator dryly offers early on. And the rest of the film painfully and arduously proves that this nihilistic view is quite accurate.
Through the expansive use of information gleaned from the minutiae of Cold War spy games to the outright abandon of any sort of law of the seas or of borders when the Cold War finally ends, Niccol guides us on a tour of Cage's Ukrainian character Orlov as he buys abandoned arms from rarefied areas and sells them to high bidders throughout the Third World, always competing with the dangerous dealers who came before. Niccol also allows us into Orlov's personal life, his marriage to the love of his juvenile dreams, and to the extent he will go to maintain his deception. His wife, the premier occidental Ava Fontaine, brilliantly played by Bridget Moynahan, accepts Orlov's fallacy and ignores his work, just as he asks her. Orlov himself seems often to ignore his own work as well. Pursued intermittently by Jack Valentine, a painfully honest INTERPOL agent played with newfound boldness by Ethan Hawke, and toyed with by Simon Weisz, a character portrayed by Ian Holm with that actor's usual deftness, Orlov becomes THE private gunrunner in the world. He can be tracked, caught, arrested, but he will always be released because he knows of and does those things with which the highest ranking members of the militaries of the world would rather their names not be associated.
The grist of this film comes in a variety of fashions. First, we appreciate the mock-comical approach of the narrative that offers profound but accurate aphorisms as we watch Third World children murder and be murdered. Second, we relate to Orlov, because he is really only doing what many of us would reasonably do in his shoes: recognize the horrors around him but hold himself blameless because there is always someone else who would gladly take over the dirty work. Third, Orlov is a real person, dealing with family conflicts and the demands of keeping certain matters secret from his wife and child even while he bestows his love upon them. Finally, Niccol populates the film with colorful, if not downright pernicious, characters who work as Orlov's clients. This technique lends a great amount of credibility to Orlov's refrain of personal innocence. The self-appointed president of Liberia would obtain his arms from whomever, Orlov has us believe. As we watch, it is easy to believe this to such an extent that we become willing to exonerate Orlov for his crimes.
The film's only weak points are when Orlov is betrayed by his wife and by his crack-head brother. The scenes are not believable, but their inclusion is understood as explanations for Valentine's ultimate arrest of Orlov. Still, we are left wondering who will be punished, Orlov, his wife or his brother.
"Lord of War" is not pretty by any means. Avoid it if you have qualms about children dying, about instant murder, or about what may really be happening behind the headlines of events in the Third World. But if you want to catch a clever and insightful glimpse into the history and persistence of underground arms dealers and how they affect global politics, see this astonishingly good movie.