Lord of War


Lord of War is a 2005 American crime drama film written, produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol, and co-produced by and starring Nicolas Cage.
The film was released in the United States on September 16, 2005, to positive reviews but was a commercial failure.
Cage plays an illegal arms dealer, inspired by the stories of several real-life arms dealers and smugglers. The film was officially endorsed by the human rights group Amnesty International for highlighting the arms trafficking by the international arms industry.

Plot

In the early 1980s, Yuri Orlov, the eldest son of a family of Ukrainian refugees, is visiting a Brighton Beach restaurant, where he witnesses a Russian mobster kill two would-be assassins holding Kalashnikov assault rifles. He is inspired to go into the arms trade, comparing the constant need for weapons to the similar human need for food. After completing his first sale, Yuri convinces his brother Vitaly to become his partner. They leave their family's restaurant behind and go into business together.
Yuri's first big break comes in the 1982 Lebanon War, when he sells guns to all sides of the conflict, despite witnessing war crimes and atrocities. As Yuri becomes more successful in the war's aftermath, his business comes to the attention of Interpol and in particular idealistic agent Jack Valentine. Valentine represents a unique threat to Yuri because he is after glory, not money, and thus cannot be bought off.
Vitaly becomes addicted to cocaine after a Colombian drug lord uses drugs to pay for an arms deal. Yuri checks Vitaly into drug rehabilitation and continues his business alone. He lures childhood crush Ava Fontaine to a false photo shoot, where they fall in love and subsequently get married.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yuri flies to Ukraine and illegally buys tanks and weapons through his uncle, a former Soviet general overseeing a newly independent Ukrainian Army arsenal with a massive surplus now that the Cold War is over. Yuri then expands to Africa and begins a business relationship with Andre Baptiste Sr., a ruthless dictator waging a never-ending civil war in Liberia. During one flight into Africa, Yuri's cargo plane is intercepted by Valentine and forced to land. Yuri escapes arrest by landing in a remote area and distributing the aircraft's illegal cargo to the locals. Unable to charge Yuri, Valentine tells Ava he is an arms dealer, prompting her to confront him and demand he stop his illegal business. For a time, Yuri complies and does his best to find alternate, legal ways of doing business, but Andre Baptiste Sr. visits him personally, offering a staggering sum in diamonds if he will return to black market arms dealing. Unable to refuse, Yuri agrees.
Yuri convinces Vitaly to come along on a sale in Sierra Leone in 2001, where a militia force allied with Baptiste is visibly preparing to destroy a refugee camp. Sympathizing with the refugees, Vitaly pleads with Yuri to abandon the deal, but Yuri refuses, arguing that if they do the militia will also kill them. Stricken with guilt, Vitaly steals a pair of grenades, destroying one of the weapon trucks and killing Baptiste Jr. Vitaly is shot and killed when the militia retaliate. Yuri reluctantly accepts half of the original diamond payment for the remaining weapons.
Yuri ships his brother's remains back to the United States. He pays a doctor to forge a phony death certificate and to remove the bullets from Vitaly's body, but one bullet remains, and Yuri is stopped by the ATF. Meanwhile, while being followed by Jack Valentine, Ava finds Yuri's security container, finally establishing definitive proof of Yuri's guilt. Ava also finds the container full of her paintings, which Yuri secretly bought. Ava takes their son and leaves him. When Yuri calls his parents, his mother says, "Both my sons are dead."
Valentine detains Yuri and tells him that he has a long jail sentence ahead of him. In a forward statement, Yuri tells Valentine soon an officer will come to the door and order his release. Yuri explains this by pointing out that his services are invaluable to US foreign interests, as he sometimes supplies "the enemies of their enemies", which the US government cannot be seen supplying. Valentine then hears a knock at the door. Realizing Yuri was right, he states, "I would tell you to go to hell, but I think you're already there."
Yuri soon returns to the arms trade, claiming that it is what he does best. The film concludes with a statement on how the five largest arms producers in the world are also the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Cast

Plot details on the illegal arms market, particularly regarding purchases for West Africa in early 1990s, are closely based on real stories and people originating from the former Soviet Union.
The conflicts portrayed in the film are all real conflicts in real countries, particularly those in Lebanon, Sudan, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Liberia, Colombia and Sierra Leone. Conversely, the image of Interpol as an acting security agency is entirely fictional.

Production

The producer largely financed the film with funding from outside the U.S. He claimed this was due to the highlighting of U.S. involvement in the international arms trade.
Some of the Russian language dialogues in the film contain very obscene Russian mat wording, translated by far softer expressions in the original English subtitles. It is unclear whether these pieces were part of the script, or Lazarev's improvisation.
A scene in the film featured 50 tanks, which were provided by a Czech source. The tanks were only available until December of the year of filming, as the dealer needed them to sell in Libya. The production team bought 3000 real SA Vz. 58 rifles to stand in for AK-47s because they were cheaper than prop guns.

Release

Critical reception

Lord of War received fairly positive reviews from critics; the film received a 61% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "While Lord of War is an intelligent examination of the gun trade, it is too scattershot in its plotting to connect." The film also received a special mention for excellence in filmmaking from the National Board of Review. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film three and a half out of four stars, writing "After movies like Hotel Rwanda, Before the Rain and Welcome to Sarajevo, the cold cynicism of Lord of War plays like a deadly footnote."
It received a 62/100 score from Metacritic.

Box office

The film grossed $9,390,144 on its opening weekend, ranking number three at the North American box office behind Just Like Heaven and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. After the film's 7 weeks of release, it grossed a total of $24,149,632 on the domestic market, and $48,467,436 overseas, for a worldwide total of $72,617,068.

Home media

Lord of War was released on Blu-ray & DVD on January 18, 2006. A 4K UHD Blu-ray transfer of Lord of War was released on March 19, 2019.
The UK DVD release of Lord of War includes, prior to the film, an advertisement for Amnesty International, showing the AK-47 being sold on a shopping channel of the style popular on cable networks. The American DVD release includes a bonus feature that shows the various weapons used in the film, allowing viewers to click on each weapon to get statistics about their physical dimensions and histories. The DVD bonus section also contains a public service announcement from Nicolas Cage that addresses the issue of illicit arms sales.