An allegory wrapped up in lies passed off in a deception.

Rating: 1/10 (23 August 2008)

The Lord of War.
This movie seems on the face of it intended to be "read" literally. On reflection, it ma\y have been intended as a metaphor. The reason being the beginning to end litany of wild factual errors and blatant un-truths. Indeed, some of these are of such magnitude that they even render the production's perspective invalid as a metaphor, let alone something that can be taken literally. Moreover, there are few "cues" to indicate to the unwitting that this is not meant to be taken at face value as a depiction of anything in reality.
This is illustrated by the way that the Cage character is shown being pursued around the globe by Ethan Hawkes "Interpol agent" and his gun toting team. There is no such thing in the real world as an "Interpol agent". Interpol is an information and liaison exchange, it does not employ investigators or field officers of any kind, let alone ones armed to the teeth whizzing into foreign territories around the globe. The "Interpol agent" and his team could, however, be interpreted as a metaphor for the real life pursuit of arms-traders which is an office-based, data-chasing operation by that agency. But there is nothing to indicate to anyone unaware of these facts that the gung-ho "Interpol agent" and his gang are not based in any reality. Therefore, far from operating in the realms of metaphor, it simply becomes a lie.
Similarly, the Cage character tells us that his trade is based in the plentiful availability of the AK47. We are told that it was the standard weapon of the Soviet Union up until the collapse of the USSR. Wrong: The standard weapon of the Soviet Union became the AK74M twenty years before the U.S.S.R collapsed. A weapon based on the same design but in a much smaller calibre and quite different to the older 7.62mm weapon encountered around the world today. The Cage character was shown buying up large quantities of AK47 at the end of the Cold War from Russian units that had long before ceased to posses that weapon. It was on the basis of such deals that we were told that the AK47 ended up in the "wrong" hands all over the world today. In fact, quite the opposite is true: that it was the Soviet Union that exported the AK47 in immense quantities to virtually any government or terrorist organisation that could be relied upon to make trouble for the West and our allies. They did so on such terms that they were virtually given away free, to states and thugs all over the world from Cuba to Cambodia. This is easily verified by anyone who stops to consider how long the AK47 has been in use in every region, decades before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Of course, there are new AK47's but these are marketed by both the Russian state and the U.S. government. They obtain theirs from a factory in the Ukraine which has recently been in a patent dispute over this with the original manufacturer, Izshmash Baikal.
The entire thrust of this movie is predictably an attempt to portray the plentiful and easy availability of weapons in the Third World as being the responsibility of irresponsible American or Anglo-Saxon capitalists. It isn't. The facts show it. Even that hoary old chestnut about Britain and the U.S having supplied Saddam Hussein with his weapons is a myth: his main armourer was the Soviet Union, second to which being France, whose opposition to the 2003 invasion may have been not unconnected to the fact that they were hoping to claim billions of Dollars back-payments for weapons already supplied. They still are seeking this money from the present Iraqi government.
By the way, the AK47 is a copy of a WW2 German design, the MP44. Mr Kalashnikov merely reverse-engineered it to suit low grade Soviet manufacturing standards and ill-educated peasant soldiery. If you want to pin that evil products bloody legacy on anyone, it is his responsibility!