Movie with a punch and a punch line

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 2005)

First of all, I think this movie is funny. Its humor is very dark, some would even say it is hopelessly dark (triumph of evil, blah, blah, blah). If one is expecting to see the self-delusional, self-medicating, feel-good mental mas...tion that one usually get from Hollywood escapism, one should look elsewhere.
Lord of war makes one look the dark recesses of our foreign policies, which most of us chooses ignore. For some of the film critics this might be too much reality. One of the reviewers from the village voice, I think, kept insisting that Ukraine is the same country as Russia. Mind you that a master's degree in eastern European geopolitics is in no way required to enjoy this movie, knowing things like that the soviet union has dissolved over 10-years ago (with it's unavoidable consequences) does help in parsing the fast-paced narratives of this story. I can see how someone can get lost into snoozeland if he gets surprised if you told him that: "hey Ukraine is a country too, and they use to have nukes!"
This is not to say that this movie had been filmed as a documentary. Not at ALL. It tells a story of a man who deals arms rather than the arms deals themselves. And I think that is an important distinction to draw. Our antihero, Yuri Orlov, is a ordinary man, under extraordinary circumstances. Although his actions are deplorable to say the least. One can easily see how any one of us may justify these actions and turn an apathetic eye towards the moral outrages that are his actions. In fact, the much more subtle message (which Andrew Niccol did not beat you over your head with) is that we are as nation states doing exactly what Yuri Orlov is doing as an individual!
There is also plenty of humor in this movie. If black humor is your cup of tea than you would find yourself chuckling your ironic chuckles through out this movie. It is simply the best in edutainment I've found in movies in years. Highly recommended.