“Lord of War”, a review
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Conclusion: If you like to be entertained and get your curiosity satisfied about international arms dealers, go see this movie with a caution: Be ready for an advertisement the producer wants you to take home in your hip pocket. His ad says “America is intentionally complicit in selling weapons for monetary gain, and American authorities don’t care who gets killed.” Composite score 1/10
Scenery/Realism: This international-based movie rates 9/10. Eastern Europe, Africa, and Metro-US were depicted with great reality. Aircraft, ships, and weapons seemed to be genuine.
Character Depth: Eight memorable characters with diverse qualities, including “sellout” Ukraine general, coke-head, glamour model, parents trying to “fit in”, President of Liberia and son, who together represented ultimate evil, a competing arms seller, and an ATF agent. The main character was presented as a young second generation American who made a career decision at the age of 20 or so to become an “arms trader”. In general, character depth rates 7/10. Plenty of diversity, but depth development was pretty much limited to the main character.
Music/Audio: No music. This could have added a total new dimension to the film. Audio was descriptively adequate. 5/10.
The Story: This is an occasionally narrated story of a young man (Uri), whose career choice takes him to various world locations. He finds sources where he can buy and customers where he can sell all kinds of weapons. Along the way, he deals without compunction with people who are dishonest, evil, and deadly. His motivation (as he puts it) is “not about the money, but because I’m good at it”. The man who is so explicitly judged by the viewer chooses not to judge others, and here is where the Nicholas Cage character falls in to fantasy land. This character is simply not believable. No viewer can identify with Cage, because the author of “Lord of War” has left a vacancy in his main character. Uri (Cage) is portrayed as a wily, skillful trader. In family matters, he accepts his parents and cares for his coke-head brother, but he totally lacks any depth of genuine care or sensitivity for his wife and son. This story just failed.
The ribs of the story are finally tied to its backbone in the last frame, where you discover that Uri is just the “head of his class”, and the principal of this “University” facilitating ultimate evil are the United States and three other countries. Oh, my goodness. 0/10
Reviewed by Scarpacci, T. B.
1 comment:
An excellent review. I will comment only that I think the fact that he has no depth and focus on reality IS the point he is trying to tell. The point is that he has no depth and focus on reality (family. wife, etc) because of the conflict he faces regarding right and wrong.
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