Unique and unusually entertaining take on a dark subject matter

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2012)

Nicolas Cage outranks all others under the column heading "schizophrenic actor," but when he hits, he hits. Playing characters such as lovably deplorable gun-runner Yuri Orlov fans the flames of the public's love-hate relationship with the big-screen veteran, reminding us of how much great work he could do if he had any semblance of screenplay taste buds (or fewer problems paying his taxes).
Andrew Niccol's "Lord of War" fits Cage scarily well. The film creates an fictional arms dealer and imagines what his life would look like throughout the years from the Cold War to the many African civil wars. It then focuses inward on what kind of a person could possibly live with themselves dealing tools of power and genocide.
Cage thrives with the opportunity to be slick and clever yet off-kilter and morally troublesome. Niccol's snappy writing, especially the voice-over narration, gives the film some edginess. What could be a darker and more dramatic tale of a man who deals guns to some of the most despicable people on the planet has a comedic tone that further muddles how we should feel about the main character.
Orlov immigrated from Soviet Ukraine as a child and grew up pretending to be Jewish in Brighton Beach. In awe of the power that guns had, he quickly made his way from gang supply to arming full-on wars. He stuck with it because he was good at it, and it made him rich. He had enough money to contrive an entire scenario that would allow him to meet and woo his dream girl, a model named Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan). She grows wise to the fact that he's not what he says he is, but takes no issue with the extravagant lifestyle.
A counterpoint to Yuri is his brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), who begins as Yuri's partner but caves to the moral pressure of the job and develops a fierce cocaine addiction. So while he's the screw-up, he still has his moral compass in check, and we're left wondering which is the better of the two evils.
Compared to Niccol's previous work ("Gattaca," "The Truman Show"), "Lord of War" seems like a much more grounded and gritty affair, but the New Zealander filmmaker employs levity throughout and gives the story some Hollywood-y or fantasy-like characteristics. As Yuri begins to have run-ins with an Interpol agent played by Ethan Hunt, their relationship feels very cat-and-mouse in the truly archetypal sense. It's evidence that Niccol wants to make an entertaining film on a topic that some would probably regard as being too sensitive for such a treatment.
Yet the tone of "Lord of War" is consistent throughout. As shocking as some of the violence can be and as much as you'll think about what a horrible thing he does for a living, there's a riskiness to the film that echoes the volatile nature of Yuri's line of work. You might be having a ball living it up one moment and find your life in danger the next, just as any moment in the film could flip around entirely.
"Lord of War" doesn't condone Yuri's choices or suggest you should be rooting for him, which is one of the film's biggest strengths. Niccol wants you to ask yourself why this happens; why someone can get filthy rich off selling guns. The answer might leave you a little sick inside, but it's true. Rather than asking the audience to assess Yuri's character, the credits roll on "Lord of War" with much bigger questions on the table.
~Steven C
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