Lord of War

From Zanecorpwiki

A great story with questionable casting and a bit of a confused script. Blu-Ray and DVD.

Summary

I like Cage, but this movie is a bit beyond his range. Hawke's as well, to be honest. The store is high tragedy and drama, but the film a somewhat weak action flick. I wouldn't avoid it, but its ultimately disappointing.

Details and Notes

Spoiler's ahead.

My biggest problem with the movie was the lack of Yuri's (played by Cage) development. Superficially, the fact that he never changed in appearance made it hard to get a feel regarding how much time passed. He in his mid-30s (I guess), the son of parents in their 40s. He goes from selling a single gun to making international deals to being the top dealer in the world in the span of... who knows? One would think it had to be at least a decade, but no one in the movie ages at all.

More substantially, I bought neither Yuri's brief reform nor his return to crime. Did he feel bad or not? I couldn't really tell. It's not clear whether he ever gave a damn or not. He came off to sympathetic to be as ruthless as his actions made him and too ruthless for me to buy his melancholy reflections.

It would have worked better if the brother had played the conscious a little better and Cage had been a bit smarmier and self centered. That kind of script would have required more focus on the characters and less on the action. It really feels like they took a harsh human tragedy and did their best to turn it into a watered down action film with tragic elements. But really, what's the point? The back story makes for poor action. It's way too sad.

It's tragic in-itself that the story was butchered for the sake of would be profit. Even sadder that the movie failed at making those profits.

It's possible I'm being too harsh. The movie was moderately well received and did draw praise from some corners. I don't know though... what was actually going on was so horrible it really demanded either a real catharsis or a complete abandonment of the soul to the dark side kind of response in Yuri. Instead his attitude is more that of a somewhat sleazy car salesman which doesn't really jive with the mass-murder aspect of his character.

Oh, and the other arms dealer (I forget the name). As a dramatic foil, what a lost opportunity! He seemed like he had scruples, but then he's willing to make a deal with Yuri at the drop of the hat to monopolize the market and sell to anyone. For him to credibly later claim that he'd returned to the side of (dark) angels, we needed something. Some repudiation of his earlier weakness.