It's pretty good but fails to be great

Rating: Null/10 (17 September 2005)

Watching the trailer for the new Nicolas Cage movie "Lord of War", I was interested in seeing what I thought would be a Crime/Drama movie in a vein similar to "Blow", it ends up trying to have political/moral seriousness and it comes up short.
The movie opens with Cage's political/moral monologue amongst thousands of bullets, a scene that it caught me off guard. We are shown an CG montage of a bullet's life (Something CG fanatics will appreciate) and then quickly thrown into his story starting in the early eighties.
I think most people know the basic story of the movie. Cage (Orlov) turns to arms dealing with his brother, Leto (Vitaly), because he is not satisfied with his current life's direction. As Cage moves up in the business, he is pursued by Interpol agent Valentine (Hawke), he faces a fierce competitor Simeon Wiesz (Holm) and he becomes friends with a ruthless African dictator (Eamonn Walker). All this is being done secretly (for a bit) behind the back of his wife and family.
The movie can be taken as anti-gun. It has a bit of sex and violence. Cage makes an alright performance, he straddles a sappy middle-aged man with some sarcastic wit (typical Cage role). I might add that he and Bridget Moynahan (Ava Fontaine his wife) establish minimal chemistry. Jared Leto chimes in with a good performance, along with Eamonn Walker as the African dictator. Ethan Hawke's character appears only a few time till the end, he turns in a decent portrayal.
Alright, let's get to the bad bits...
My main problem was that it felt like it was building up to a point but it just never came. Is this supposed to be a serious political/moral movie? It begins and ends with a statement, but seems to forget what it's trying to say throughout (minus a few "speeches" by Hawke, I'm sure he enjoyed doing those). Is this just supposed to be about the corruption in the real world? How are we "supposed" to feel about Orlov? Cage barely lets a whimper when his family and wife disown him. Orlov's mindset is, "I'm good at what I do." and he sure sticks to it. He doesn't seem to care too much that his wife, son and family (predictably) leave him.
After his brother Vitaly is killed, he ends up working for the same people anyway. Leto's death, along with his Ukrainian Uncle's car bomb death, was predictable. By the end you think he will be in jail by Valentine (who I disliked the character for some reason) but he's not, he gets away with it! He even ends up working for the same clients anyway. Hell, if things are like that I thought, "Why don't I become a cold emotionless arms dealer, I'll make millions and the US government will let me off the hook!". BOTTOM LINE: CAGE'S CHARACTER IS ALMOST NEVER CHALLENGED WITH ANY MORAL DILEMMA TO CONFRONT! That's how the movie fails.
I expect it to do mildly well, or poorly. I saw the opening Friday night show, about one-fourth the the Theater was filled. Everyone left in silence, and you could tell it wasn't a "What a deep and powerful movie." silence, just an "Ehh...". It was entertaining and it could have been great but it fails in execution.