A deals a deal

Rating: 6/10 (18 September 2014)

Lord of War sees Nicolas Cage play Yuri Orlov, a Russian émigré to the United States, whose family pretends to be Jewish and living in a dead end world of Little Odessa. He sees an opportunity that violence can make him money and becomes a successful arms dealer as he starts out small in the early 1980s and his enterprise takes off once the USSR collapses.
Yuri is immoral, he realises if its not him, then someone else will sell arms. Even then someone will find a way to kill others. The film is driven by its narration and goes on a zippy and st time a sarcastic and cynical pace, maybe too fast as before long Orlov and his brother go from working in a family restaurant to an arms trade fair and his brother being hooked on drugs.
Things take a turn as Interpol close in on him after pursuing him for years and his wife probes deeper into his activities, his brother realises the consequences of their actions in giving weapons to local warlords.
Cage does not convince entirely as a Russian born American, the film is also a little bit to glib and smug, although the cynicism is a plus but it does come close to some preachiness here and there. Of course Orlov must face the consequences of his action but Ethan Hawke who plays the Interpol agent seems to be too much of a smug boy scout himself. The film loses steam towards the end with what looks like silly plot resolution to give Orlov a crisis of conscience but it still makes for an interesting and at times a funny film.