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Ukrainian immigrant Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) is a brilliant gunrunner and a loving husband to
Ava (Bridget Moynehan) and doting brother Vitali (Jared Leto). They pass off as Jews in gangster neighborhood in Brooklyn. His quick wit, connections and
resourcefulness enable him to dodge the Interpol Agent Valentine (Ethan Hawke) and live a high-end lifestyle.
At first, it is just plain business for Yuri, where he refuses take sides or be morally involved. But when his biggest client, heartless Liberian warlord Andre Baptiste (Eamonn Walker) and his military/psycho killer son Andre (Sammi Rotibi) initiate him into his first cold-blooded murder, he realizes he cannot violence itself. In one of their deals, where Yuri brings rehabilitated Vitali to watch his back, the younger brother witnesses the murder of a young girl and a child and realizes the wrongness of what they are doing. Vitali attempts to cancel the deal but fails and leaves Yuri lost and broken.
The movie is brilliant and effective. The matter-of-fact presentation of violence and
war and how people condone the exploitation of the developing countries sends a clear and chilling wake up call for the viewers.
The crisp and witty lines elicit nervous laughter that makes you squint, grimace and shake your head in horror. The director successfully makes a point without sensationalizing or moralizing. The cinematography is a montage of metaphors and emotions hitting both the heart and mind—you are forced to think and make a stand as you are led to feel cruelty, greed, apathy and violence. Equally noteworthy is the opening credits where viewers follow the manufacturing and usage from a bullet's-eye-view. Thus setting the tone for the movie and making an early statement that gun manufacturers are producing death as their end product. Cage brings and substance to Yuri's pragmatism and moral missteps. Leto is equally brilliant as a young boy striving to be upright despite the slides and setbacks. Hawke succeeds in portraying the weak and ineffective Interpol Agent. Overall the movie is very powerful—a socio-politically conscious film.
Today, one out of twelve people is armed with a weapon…the only problem is how to arm the
other eleven or so says Yuri. Yuri rationalizes that if he doesn't make money, someone else will.
And besides, he's good at it. Business is business but business needs to come with an honorable profit and social responsibility. Painfully he realizes this is not all that matters. It is bad enough to keep silent about inhumanity and violence but it is an outrage to condone and exploit this. Although the audience may fall in love with the smooth and witty Yuri, or envy his luxurious lifestyle, the sensitive and intelligent viewer will see that Yuri is the bad guy—bad because he is selfish and indifferent—and will fervently pray, not for his downfall, but for his epiphany.
The Lord of War asks you if what's legal is always moral, and also compels you to understand how people are morally sabotaged into accepting and living violence.
Highly recommended for the young but mature viewers.
(Date Reviewed: 14 October 2005)
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