info-98297 This movie is lost time and overrated. I saw the first half hour and I am particularly annoyed that you have to accept everything for true. The structure of the story is miserable. The main character played by Nicolas Cage sells weapons but it is not clear where they come from. He has customers all over the world from shadowy areas to which he can deliver weapons. Never is clear how he get this customers. He has an unstable brother with whom he cooperates and who can not bear the wealth when they have succes. He goes to the coke and then goes downhill with him. He tries to help him with a lot of tearjerking brotherlove. An other thing, he gets a handsome woman who does not find his work completely pure and suffers from remorse. This problem also must be resolved. In short, this movie has a machine gun fire of clichés whereby the critical film viewer has dropped out before the end

Screen_Blitz "There are 550 million firearms manufactured in a world circulation, that is one firearm for every twelve people on the planet" says Nicholas Cage's character in the opening scene. This political thriller boasting Andrew Niccol in the director's chair offers a significant, but somewhat convoluted testament on the tragic repurcussions of illegal arms dealing. The central figure in the story of a seemingly ordinary man who finds himself way over his head when he gets involved in a contraband arms dealing industry. As what many may know from reading the newspapers, arms dealing is a dirty business, and this film sheds some fair light on it. Although Niccol appears to show slightly more interest in pushing for a political agenda than telling a stimulating story, the story serves not as an angry condescension against arms dealing but a bold character study of a man wrestling with his inner demons as a result of his amoral business. Set in the 1980s during the final stretch of the Cold War, this film stars Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov, an Ukrainian native who makes a shot for the big bucks when he starts an contraband arms dealing business, selling a mass production of firearms to various international warzones around the globe. Bringing his cocaine addicted brother Vitaly (played by Jared Leto) along, Yuri quickly rises up the financial ladder with his selling, but soon must confront his morality when he finds himself in the crossfire of Interpol agent Jack Valentin (played by Ethan Hawke) who's pursuing after him. This movie tackles the area of the Cold War most films of the genre often neglect, and that is the politics that went outside the United States when many countries in the eastern hemisphere were at war and one of the major conflict dealt with exchange of international firearms. While the arms exchanging duty did lead to a helping hand for international defense, it also opened doors to tragedies that caused the lives of countless lives including children. This film focuses on the lead character's struggle against his morality when we witnesses the violent tragedies of countries at war, while experiencing a bold uproar in the law enforcement. Andrew Niccol does a fairly successful job at portraying the rise and fall of the lead character's dirty business, effectively exhibiting the violent consequences of arms dealing that puts him and his family in danger. But it is not the final half of the film when the story splashes into a somewhat uneven fiasco. There is a fair amount of substance and political commentary sprinkled throughout the two-hour picture, but perhaps it doesn't help that the narrative occasionally teeters towards the brink of uncertainty. The story ends on a rather ambiguous note that has a good capacity to leaving viewers with more questions about Yuri's morally dubious choices than answers.Nicolas Cage, Academy Award winner for his harrowing role in 'Leaving Las Vegas', does a pleasant job of showing his acting muscles in the lead role. His performance is solidly pleasant and shines a strong light on his talent. While his character may not fall in line with the category of a villain, there is no doubt that this role will provoke outrage for his ill morality that eventually leads to tragic consequences. Adding pinches of levity to the film's dark tone is Jared Leto who hops into the role of the lead character's younger brother Vitaly. Leto shines with a dose of humor nearly minute he is on screen, with his flamboyant behavior resulting from his compulsive cocaine addiction. While his comedic portrayal eventually overstays its welcome, Leto proves himself as a competent actor. Bridget Moynahan, suiting the role of Yuri's sexy lover and eventual wife, exhibits a decent performance for her time on screen. Then there is Ethan Hawke who takes on the role of an Interpol agent who rides on Yuri's tale upon discovering his unlawful business. His performance is quite strong and effectively shows his acting chops, nothing more nothing less. Lord of War is far from standing a cinematic masterpiece, but it is smart, if slightly flawed testament on illegal arms dealing. It is an ambitious picture that is bound spark plenty of interests and discussions long after its conclusion, at least for some who get the invested in its bleak subject matter. It is a dark picture, but it is an intriguing nonetheless. Best of all, it marks the spot of one of Nicolas Cage's best endeavors.

sharky_55 There are grander and more complex ideas in the opening and close of Lord of War than in any of the minutes that are sandwiched by them. They posit that Yuri Orlov is like any other toiler of their trade, merely a tiny cog in a finely oiled machine that will chug on no matter who is delivering the goods or pulling the trigger. It's a sobering and frightening thought, although for Yuri he is less tiny than he might like to think. The role asks for a master of deflection and thin justifications. Cage has a logical answer for any challenge, a tight-lipped smile for any moral quandary, although in the end it is again about money. Would he be a more interesting character if there was more to this motivation? It is structured like certain Scorsese films, with the man perched high on his domain, flaunting his wealth and influence directly to the audience via narration, flashing luxury and excess until we are also somewhat entranced. But Niccol ultimately resists this direction, and the result is a rather muddled moral tale that lacks spine. He goes in the more serious direction. He could have posed Yuri as a Henry Hill or a Jordan Belfort, have him go out guns blazing into a satire at full tilt. And indeed there are flashes of this potential; the stirring strings of Ride of the Valkyries at a military show, how the giving away of guns is handled like children flocking to a free ice-cream truck, and the way Yuri covets the end of the Russian communist state, not because of any political idealism, but because of how much guns and tanks he can now resell for a fat profit. Could any other actor besides Nicholas Cage pull off kissing Gorbachev like he does? Coincidentally he is a man of many talents, and can also play the opposite, the straight man with a vein of dark humour running through him. He is a showmanship through and through, which means he is in the right business, at least until the mundane trappings of domesticity come for him. War may be the ultimate business to Yuri, but even guns cannot be his first love. Using the tools and deceptions of his trade he woos his childhood crush, and eventually finds some semblance of settling down. It is here that Niccol tries to craft a conflict; most men wouldn't be flying around the world dealing with firearms if they had Bridget Moynahan to come home to, but of course Yuri isn't most men. Running guns is supposed to consume him, but the problem is that there isn't much to consume in the first place. Ava is, as she herself admits, nothing more than a pretty face, and the extended family is neatly tucked away someplace where only a occasion phone call can reach. The other quandary is the moral one, which cannot be ignored in such a macabre affair. Though Yuri might attempt to distance himself from the consequences of his trade by way of clumsy metaphor (gun-running is compared to everything from losing your virginity to peddling vacuum cleaners) at the end of the day he must still confront what his guns are doing. Two figures are played off the coldness of Yuri; his brother, a coke-head who nevertheless sees things a little clearer than his older brother (as in, not just in dollar signs), and the rugged Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke woefully miscast as the righteous, lawful type, and with a terrible name to boot). But the film tales the easy sentimental route, showing us nothing new. We already know that Yuri is fooling no one with his talks of "I'm not the one pointing the gun". His one-liners ("At least mine have a safety switch") might have a brief zeal but in the end we aren't charmed by this equal opportunity merchant of death. Yuri, at the start and by the end, has already convinced himself of no wrongdoing, but can he convince the viewer? Well, he certainly gives it a good shot.

Kushal Arora It starts as a promising movie. Nicolas Cage as Yuri leaves a good impression at the beginning and it looks like on of those black comic films which do highlight a serious problem but doesn't take themselves too seriously. Something like Wolf of Wall Street. At the beginning it had that feel, but overdoes of morality and a sense of leaving a message at the end killed the movie. Somewhere along the way writer developed a sense of morality and abruptly tries to change the track which does effect the story line and kill it. There seems to be a rush to end the film that too at a very different note where it started i.e. making an un-apologetic gum smuggler feel guilty. If don well and more gradually it might have worked, but the way all of a sudden, a wife that never questioned her husband's source of money developing a sense of morality, killing his brother to bring a scenario of doom seemed like an afterthought. The worst were last 10 mins in which the power of his connections is exhibited. Overall well acted movie with good dialogs and good first half but weak ending to the story which kills the movie