Another Lord of the Flies

Rating: 8/10 (21 May 2008)

This film caught me from the opening credits. Visually stunning and innovative, it is anchored in its cynical but all-too-true black humour... and is one of the best ensemble casts I've seen in a long time. I don't think there is a bad performance in the entire film: quite the contrary, you believe everyone. Yuri (Nicholas Cage) is from the very first a fraud... masquerading first as a Jew and then as a shipping magnate... he is in fact an arms dealer who is particularly good at his work. His brother (played by Jared Leto in one of his best performances ever) is a lost coke-head who, despite everything still manages to have a sense of humanity that has escaped his brother. Saddest of all is the "good guy" - Ethan Hawke, who is trying to do some good in this horror story called reality; he is incessantly idealistic - but, as we see in the most cynical (and possibly true) final minutes ever put onto the screen, his idealism is shown to be totally ineffectual when faced with "raison d'état" power and greed. Despite moments of almost flippant humour, the underlying feeling that runs through this film is the unrelenting desire for power, which as we all know corrupts. The jovial menace of an African warlord is one of the most chilling performances I've seen on film in decades... mainly because it is so underplayed but reeking with the banality of evil. Played by Eamann Walker - recently of OZ fame - they couldn't have found a better person to play this part.He has a charisma which makes him riveting and all too believable. Perhaps the most telling thing about this film is that it leaves you with a sinking feeling that not only are the events on screen pretty much true, but that there is no way to stop or improve the situation. We are all headed to oblivion with such men loose in the world - and this film makes it all too plain that it is only a matter of time before chaos will reign supreme, and that there will be not much hope left in the world for the future. Lord of the Flies, indeed!