Translation of GOODFELLAS to arms trade context

Rating: 4/10 (10 August 2010)

I am surprised that IMDb.com reviewers have not noted (or at least none whose reviews I've read) that LORD OF WAR is a complete copy, in both structure and form, mutatis mutandis, of GOODFELLAS (1990, dir. Scorsese). Here Ray Liotta has become Nicolas Cage, but the story, mode of presentation, structure, and "moral of the story" or "bottom line" are all identical: We are to sympathize with this "average Joe," an otherwise quite likable guy, who gets mixed up in organized crime. Both films feature narration by the "average Joe" of his experiences, which is supposed to show not that he is evil, but that he is not. Instead of the loose cannon character Tommie (played by Joe Pesci), who blows people away at the slightest provocation because he has such low self-esteem and is totally insecure, here we have the president of Liberia, who, too, is powerful because and only because he totes a gun and is willing and able to kill without blinking an eye. Cocaine finds its way into both films, because, well, I guess it always does when the context is organized crime.
There is no originality here at all. Not a single point or twist. The wives are similarly clueless, the "average Joe" is supposed to be someone who might just as easily have been the viewer, and we are to believe that he himself never willed the death of anyone, much less pulled the trigger. In GOODFELLAS, the repeated claim that Henry Hill never whacked anyone during his long mafia career stretched credulity beyond its breaking point, and the same holds true here as well. We see lots of violence, but total denial of complicity in murder on the part of the protagonist in cahoots with the "real" criminals.
The redeeming feature of this rehash (or is it just plagiarism?) is that it may open a few people's eyes to the reality of the arms trade and how we "average Joes" fund the slaughter of people abroad, essentially arming the would-be killers no less than does Yuri in the film. We are to sympathize with him, indeed, because we, too, continue to claim "it's not our fight" while writing our annual tax checks to the feds.
As a film, however, LORD OF WAR is a serious "been there, done that." This is an inferior copy, at best.