The Best Film on Arms Sales Ever Made

Rating: 9/10 (12 October 2018)

This is the best film Nicolas Cage has ever made. It is in my top 100 films of all time; and it is not easy to get on that list. The acting, direction, production values, and writing for this film are top of the line. There is not one flaw in the film. I can count on two hands the films I have give ratings of 10; it is not a rating I give often. Every scene is perfectly shot. Every sequence is more astounding than the next. Every character is eminently believable. America loves its guns. It makes, uses and distributes more guns in the world than the next TWENTY countries combined. Americans love their guns more than their children; and this is not an exaggeration. When faced with protecting their children or the second amendment to protect gun owners, Americans consistently take action for the latter. They can say they love their children more than their guns, but their actions prove otherwise. Of course, there are millions of Americans who do love their children more than guns (and I am one of them), but it would appear as if they are in the minority, OR the gun lobby and forces that we see at work in this film are far more powerful than the majority of Americans who live in the country. Even the character portrayed by Cage throws away a toy gun that his son has. At some level, he does not want his son to be like him. Our children are bombarded with toy guns from toddler age, TV gun violence, movie gun violence, and actual gun use in communities until guns become second nature to them. I was ecstatic when I qualified for Expert in Basic Training during the Vietnam War. I loved going to the rifle range because I was very good at it. I had been conditioned to feel that way from the time I was a small child and had my Hopalong Cassidy six-shooters in my side holsters. After the Vietnam War, I knew better. And forty years after the Vietnam War, I still know better. Guns are instruments of death. My favorite line in the film is when a little girl who is an amputee asks the white man from the US "Will my arm grow back again?" No, it won't. It would be nice if we protected children instead of guns.