Better An Expose Than Entertainment

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2007)

In director Andrew Niccol's new movie "Lord of War" (**1/2 out of ****), likable Nicolas Cage plays Yuri Orlov, an amoral globe-trotting merchant of death who sells weapons of all sorts to sadistic, Third World African dictators committed to the concept of tyranny and self-aggrandizement. You've haven't seen Cage in such a singularly unsympathetic role since John Woo's 1997 bullet-blasting blockbuster "Face/Off." Nevertheless, despite the lack of sympathy that his gun running character elicits, Cage's charisma shines through this unsavory veil, and he creates a genuinely affable persona. You can't help but like Yuri Orlov, because this devilish but friendly Cage character manages somehow to avoid getting his hands dirty. Truly, he is the man caught in the middle, a victim of circumstances that he manipulates to make a fast buck in a world gone mad. Indeed, he qualifies as the hero--or at the very least the protagonist, because "Lord of War" covers the ups and downs of his 20-years as one of the world's notorious armaments salesmen.
Appearances are deceptive in any movie that New Zealand native Andrew Niccol has either written or directed. Does anybody remember the cold, cruel, procrustean society of his 1997 sci-fi saga "Gattaca?" Although he didn't call the shots on the offbeat 1998 epic "The Truman Show," Niccol wrote the film's thought-provoking screenplay about a man (Jim Carrey) trapped in a world that consists entirely of artifice. Lied to from birth, "The Truman Show" hero eventually learns that others have manipulated his whole life, so that his life has become the subject of the top-ranked TV reality show. Niccol penned, produced, and directed the featherweight Al Pacino comedy "S1m0ne" (2002) about a movie director who uses CGI to create a new female superstar, because he can no longer tolerate unruly, uncooperative starlets.
In "Lord of War," Niccol flips everything upside down. He transforms the traditional villain into a hero and makes his embodiment of law and order--a straight-shooting, fair & square Interpol agent--into an adversary as pesky as any horsefly. As movies go, "Lord of War" shatters one convention after another, some for good, others not so good, and its politically incorrect agenda is undoubtedly going to alienate some audiences, not only because Cage is the bad guy that we are supposed to identify with, but also because some may find the violence objectionable. Squeamish audiences will flinch when bullets perforate heads and send blood spraying across the wall behind their victims. Not surprisingly, "Lord of War" bears an R-rated that reflects its over-the-top, ironic indictment of international arms dealing while it ridicules the hypocrisy of super-powers that cloak their complicity with freebooters like Yuri. Heavy-handed and factual to the nth degree (reportedly a real arms dealer supplied them with genuine tanks), "Lord of War" is a glossy-looking movie that is too clever for its own good. The imaginative but jolting opening credits chronicle the life of a bullet from the factory to a machine gun and then through a child's cranium.
The major problem with "Lord of War" is that Niccol spends too much time exposing the international arms racket rather than dramatizing the exploits of a cavalier gun runner. The Nicolas Cage characterthe son of Ukrainian immigrants in Brooklyn who discovers a future in gun running after he witnesses a gunfight at a restaurantqualifies as the only three-dimensional character. Everybody else lurks on the periphery. When they disappear from the film for stretches, like Yuri's troubled brother Vitalty (Jared Leto of "Alexander"), we don't miss them. Initially, Cage's Yuri Orlov breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience. Afterward, he narrates in intermittent voice-overs, not unlike the leads in director Martin Scorsese's Mafia bio-pics such as "Goodfellas" or "Casino," and provides us with a profile of a gun runner. For example, Yuri warns us: "The first and most important rule of gun-running is: never get shot with your own merchandise." Yuri has no conscience. He sells to whoever can pay. The best day of his life occurs when the Soviet Union collapses. He bribes a high-ranking relative in the military to sell him a vast stockpile of tanks, AK-47 assault rifles, and helicopters. Acquiring this hoard is one thing, Yuri must now wrestle with the logistics of shipping the weapons to his clients without Agent Jack Valentine (Oscar-winner Ethan Hawk of "Training Day") busting him. This rivalry between Yuri and Valentine resembles a Warner Brothers cartoon with Yuri as the Roadrunner and Valentine as Wiley Coyote. Meantime, when he isn't orchestrating arms sales, he courts super-model Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan of "Coyote Ugly"), but keeps her in the dark about his work. Indeed, Yuri's encounters with murderous African warlords generate more drama than his marriage to his trophy wife, his cocaine-addicted brother, and the ever vigilant Valentine.
Clocking in at over two hours, "Lord of War" wears mighty thin before fade out. Okay, Cage gets in several clever lines of dialogue, like "Where there's a will, there's a weapon." Literally, since this amounts to a one-man show, nobody else makes much of an impression. Although his Ukraine accent may be questionable, Cage gives a polished, nuanced performance, too bad that "Lord of War" couldn't have been half as assured and incisive as Cage's thesping. The audacious satire in Niccol's script lacks the sting of a Stanley Kubrick black comedy such as "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) or Richard Brooks' "Wrong Is Right" (1982), a Sean Connery thriller about terrorists blowing themselves up in America. Overall, "Lord of War" achieves more urgency as a cynical, fact-filled expose about gun runners and the governments that sanction their efforts than a satisfying, catharsis-inducing actioneer where everything resolves itself in less than two hours.