Lord of War

Lord of War is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Andrew Niccol, starring Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, and Ethan Hawke. Taking place in the early 1980s, Lord of War follows Yuri Orlov as he enters the illegal arms trade, eventually becoming the most notorious arms dealer on the planet. The film was released in the United States by Lions Gate Films on September 16, 2005, and was released internationally by Arclight Films. The film grossed million at the box office.
American studios were unwilling to financially back the film due to the script being pitched shortly before the Iraq War. Because of this, funding was compiled from various sources, with French producer Philippe Rousselet funding the remainder. An opportunity to reduce costs was discovered while filming in the Czech Republic, where it was discovered that purchasing real Kalashnikov rifles was cheaper than making prop equivalents, and so 3,000 were purchased and later sold back.
Review aggregators Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of over 60%, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Independent reception was marginally negative. Many publications felt that the story, when not focused on Yuri's arms dealing, was weak. Shortly after the film's release, human rights group Amnesty International endorsed it for highlighting the danger of an uncontrolled global arms trade.
A sequel for Lord of War was announced on May 8, 2023, with filming scheduled for the fall of the same year.
Plot
Yuri Orlov, the eldest son of a family of Jewish Ukrainian refugees, is visiting a restaurant on Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York where he witnesses a Russian mobster kill two assassins holding Kalashnikov rifles. The incident inspires him to go into the arms trade. After meeting a contact at his temple and completing his first sale of an Uzi sub-machine gun to a local mobster, Yuri convinces his younger brother Vitaly to become his partner.
The two brothers get their first break during the 1982 Lebanon War, where they sell weapons to both Israeli and Lebanese troops despite seeing the weapons be used to commit atrocities. As Yuri prospers, he eventually catches the attention of Interpol agent Jack Valentine. Valentine represents a unique threat to Yuri because he is after recognition, not money, and cannot be bribed.
Vitaly becomes addicted to cocaine after a Colombian drug lord forces the brothers to accept several kilo of cocaine as payment for a sale of several Glock 17 pistols. Yuri checks Vitaly into a drug rehabilitation clinic and continues alone. He uses his profits to seduce his favorite model, Ava Fontaine, and they get married and have a son.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yuri flies to Ukraine and illegally buys Soviet military hardware through his uncle, a former Soviet general who is overseeing the distribution of weapons to the newly formed Ukrainian Army. His uncle dies in a car bombing by Yuri's rival, arms dealer Simeon Weisz. Yuri expands his business to Africa, where he supplies Andre Baptiste Sr., a bloody Liberian dictator. Baptiste later surprises Yuri at his hotel and offers him a captive Weisz, whom Baptiste caught trying to sell to his opponent. Yuri refuses, but Baptiste places the gun in his hand and pulls the trigger for him.
Valentine tells Ava that her husband is an arms dealer, prompting her to confront him. In response, Yuri starts trading timber and oil, but becomes frustrated with the lower profits of honest work. When Baptiste visits him in person and offers him the largest payday of his career, a stash of valuable blood diamonds, Yuri returns to crime. Ava follows him one day, unaware that Interpol is following her, and they both discover the shipping container that holds his arms-dealing office.
Yuri picks up Vitaly to assist him with a deal in Sierra Leone, where a militia force allied with Baptiste is preparing to destroy a refugee camp. Vitaly pleads with Yuri to abandon the deal after witnessing Baptiste's men kill a woman and child with machetes, but Yuri refuses, knowing that Baptiste's men would kill them. In response, Vitaly steals a pair of grenades and destroys a truck full of weapons, also killing Baptiste's son, before he is gunned down. Yuri receives half his payment for having one truck intact, but is spared. Yuri pays a doctor to forge Vitaly's death certificate and remove the bullets from his body, but a missed bullet is found by customs officials, and Yuri is arrested. When he tries to reconcile with his parents, they disown him.
Valentine detains Yuri in anticipation of his trial and conviction, but Yuri is unfazed. He tells Valentine that he will eventually be released, as while he is a criminal, his crime sometimes serves the interests of the U.S. government. Valentine hears a knock at the door, looks at Yuri for a moment, and rebukes him.
Yuri is released and soon returns to the arms trade. The film concludes with a statement that the five largest arms producers in the world—the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France—are also the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Cast
Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov, an international arms dealer who sells guns to anyone who can pay.
Ethan Hawke as Jack Valentine, an incorruptible Interpol agent and the primary threat to Yuri's livelihood.
Jared Leto as Vitaly Orlov, Yuri's brother and business partner.
Bridget Moynahan as Ava Fontaine, a world-renown supermodel and Yuri's wife.
Eamonn Walker as André Baptiste Sr, an unscrupulous and violent dictator in control of Liberia. (based on former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor)
The cast also includes Sammi Rotibi as André Baptiste Jr, the son of André Baptiste Sr; Ian Holm as Simeon Weisz, an infamous arms dealer and rival to Yuri; and Eugene Lazarev, a Soviet Union general and Yuri's uncle.
Production
Pre-production
The idea for Lord of War originated prior to 2004 when an agent of the Creative Artists Agency gave Philippe Rousselet the script. It was summarized as a "Goodfellas in the world of arms dealing". Rousselet was impressed by the script but could not find an American studio that would take it on, as it was right before the beginning of the Iraq War.
An additional setback was that scenes in the script were written to occur in up to 13 different countries, requiring filming in varying locations. At one point the film was going to make use of the United Kingdom tax fund Movision, but as the expected expenses increased, Section 48 laws disqualified the film from making use of it. South Africa provided financial incentives for filming, such as paying back 15% of all expenditures incurred within its borders.
Rousselet reported to Variety that the financing necessary for the film was a mixture of debt taken on with Citibank West, the VIP3 German tax fund, and foreign sales. The remainder was paid by Rousselet.
Production
Production was primarily based in South Africa, the Czech Republic and New York City. Scenes in Ukraine were filmed in the Czech Republic, and scenes in Africa, the Caribbean, and Beirut were all taken in South Africa. Effort was taken to have extras that looked appropriate for every country depicted, both in attire and ethnicity. Due to the film's low budget, many scenes were constructed with only basic elements. One scene was comprised entirely of 10,000 clay bricks and an extra in North African garb.
Amir Mokri made it a point to have the camera move as Yuri moved, in reference to Yuri's constant travelling as an arms dealer.
While filming in the Czech Republic, Niccol discovered it was cheaper to purchase real firearms rather than props, and so he purchased 3,000 Kalashnikovs. Most were sold back at a loss, though some were sawed in half to remove them from circulation. Niccol commented that he found it disturbing how easy it was to purchase them. Niccol met a variety of arms dealers during the production process, which he came to like. He attributed their likeability despite their profession to the fact that they were very good salesmen. A particular scene in the film featured a line of fifty T-72 tanks. These were provided by a source in the same country, and they told Niccol that he could use them until December, as they were needed back by then to sell to Libya. NATO had to be told about the tanks, as satellite imagery suggested a weapons build up in the country. Another sequence of scenes showed Yuri co-piloting an Antonov An-12 transport plane. The plane was provided by an arms dealer, with the plane was actively being used for transporting firearms during the time of production.
Yuri Orlov inspiration
Multiple publications have reported that Yuri is based on five criminal arms dealer, with some focusing on the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. While this connection has not been confirmed, it has been pointed out that Yuri shares characteristics with Bout, and several events in Lord of War mirror actions attributed to him. For example, Yuri is natively Ukrainian, and Viktor has been identified as being the same by the South African intelligence agency. Both men held the nickname "Merchant of Death", sold weapons to both sides of the same conflict, and traveled with multiple passports, among other similarities. The National Security Archive reported in 2015 that Yuri was primarily based on Sarkis Soghanalian, an Armenian-Lebanese arms dealer.
Release
Box office
The film grossed $9.4 million in the United States and Canada on it's opening weekend, ranking number three in that box office category behind Just Like Heaven and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It grossed a total of $24.1 million in the same region, and $48.5 million internationally, for a total of $72.6 million.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 62% rating based on 149 reviews. The site's consensus states: "While Lord of War is an intelligent examination of the gun trade, it is too scattershot in its plotting to connect." On Metacritic, it has a score of 62% based on entries from 31 critics, indicating that it has "generally favorable reviews". Individual reviews from publications were marginally negative.
Peter Travers of the Rolling Stone, and Variety magazine, both felt that the film was weak when not focused on the arms trade. Peter stated that Yuri's dialogue was more interesting than the "human drama" present in the film, while Variety felt that Yuri's family dynamic was "dull and unconvincing".
Business Record criticized the film's interpretation of Interpol as inaccurate, and that its condemnation of governments selling weapons - when its focus was on freelance arms trade - was a "blatant bait-and-switch". Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post commented that the script relied too much on "didactic [and] epigrammatic" language, that Yuri does not relate with other characters, ending with the summary "Lord of War... [is] transfixing to watch... But it's finally just as empty as the man it's about." A writer of the Film Journal Institute stated that Niccol "[fell] short of the straight-shooter mark, stinging his audience all over the place." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly summarized the film as a "dead pile of information in search of a movie."
The film received praise from publications for its opening, where the viewer is shown the point of view of a bullet from when it is made, sold, and eventually fired. David Denby of The New Yorker characterized Niccol's inclusion of the sequence as "malicious wit", while Cineaste called it "blunt, virtuosic, and sensational", asserting that its point is to showcase that worldwide violence begins and ends with individual people.
Some publications gave generally positive reviews, such as Comic Book Resources - in a belated commentary made after the sequel's announcement - characterizing it as a "very solid drama" which brings attention to the idea that profiting from war can be treated like any other business. People Magazine stated that the film was informative, had sharp and stylish wit, ending with the summary "Lord of War is that rarest of pictures, one that's actually about something and mad as hell."
Accolades
The film received a special mention for excellence in filmmaking from the National Board of Review. Shortly after the film released Amnesty International, a non-governmental organization focusing on human rights, endorsed the film for illustrating the danger of international arms trade when left unchecked.
Home media
Lord of War was released on DVD on January 17, 2006 and Blu-ray on June 27, 2006. A 4K UHD Blu-ray transfer of Lord of War was released on March 19, 2019.
Sequel
A sequel to Lord of War, titled Lords of War, is scheduled to begin filming in the fall of 2023. Cage is returning as Yuri Orlov, as well as producer, with Bill Skarsgård executive producing and playing his son. Rousselet is returning as a producer. FilmNation Entertainment is representing the film's international sales while CAA Media Finance is handling domestic rights.
See also
While There's War There's Hope (1974 film), Italian film directed and starring Alberto Sordi; a film with similar subject and topic coverage
War Dogs (2016 film), biopic about international arms dealers
References
External links
2005 films
2005 crime thriller films
2005 crime drama films
American crime thriller films
American political drama films
German crime thriller films
German crime drama films
English-language German films
Films about arms trafficking
Films about organized crime
Films about Interpol
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in fiction
Crime films based on actual events
Films directed by Andrew Niccol
Films set in the 1980s
Films set in the 1990s
Films set in the 2000s
Films set in New York City
Films set in Ukraine
Films set in Berlin
Films set in Beirut
Films set in Bolivia
Films set in Colombia
Films set in Liberia
Films set in Sierra Leone
Cold War films
Lebanese Civil War films
Films shot in the Czech Republic
Lionsgate films
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Anti-war films
Saturn Films films
Films produced by Nicolas Cage
2000s political films
2000s war films
Crime war films
Films scored by Antônio Pinto
2000s American films
2000s German films
Films with screenplays by Andrew Niccol