"Lord of War" is the one of the few films since "The Family Man" in which Nicholas Cage gets through the entire movie without shooting someone. It's ironic that "Lord of War" is among his less violent roles, considering that the plot centers on gun trafficking.
Cage plays Yuri Orlov who, as a boy, managed to escape the Cold War on the Ukrainian front by pretending to be Jewish. After becoming dissatisfied with the job at his family's kosher restaurant in Brooklyn, he discovers that working in arms dealing can be much more lucrative.
"You go into the restaurant business because people are always going to have to eat," Yuri says in one of his many voiceovers. "That was the day I realized my destiny lay in fulfilling another basic human need."
The implication is that the need is gun trafficking, but it has a darker connotation as well.
Yuri recruits his younger brother Vitaly, played by Jared Leto, and the two launch their career through a member of their father's synagogue. Before long, the siblings are thriving in the weapons business. Yuri plays on everyone's side, even selling weapons to governments at war with his own country.
"The worst enemy for an arms dealer is peace," Yuri says.
Things go smoothly until the brothers reluctantly accept cocaine as payment for a shipment to South America. Vitaly arbitrarily becomes a raging addict, and is in and out of rehabilitation for the remainder of the film.
Yuri continues to profit in the arms world, using his wealth to charm model Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan) while being chased by Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke).
In one particularly striking scene, Yuri sells machine guns to African militants on a ridge overlooking the settlement of innocent natives that they intend to massacre. Yuri watches as the army rides down to slaughter the defenseless residents.
The film is written and directed by veteran Andrew Niccol, who scored favorably with both audiences and critics with his screenplays for "Gattaca" and "The Truman Show."
"Lord of War" is Niccol's first stab at an action movie, resulting in a less compelling and original film than his previous works. Fortunately, Niccol does have a knack for looking at situations from unique angles. "Lord of War" continues the trend by utilizing the rare perspective of an arms dealer.
Niccol takes his time introducing the main conflict, waiting two-thirds of the movie. By the time Yuri realizes his occupation is jeopardizing his wife, his brother and innocent people around the world, there isn't enough time left for a climactic ending.
The constant monologues throughout the film merely serve to move the story along and fill in plot holes without giving any real insight into Yuri's character. Although the performances are top-notch, and Cage incorporates a large part of his own personality into the character, the acting only partially mitigates the movie's predictable, and twistless plot.
"Lord of War" has everything that makes a good action movie: guns, sex, drugs and of course, a plot thinner than the film on which it's printed. The film is often obvious but could still be fun to ride once.
Just don't buy the season pass.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
