Review: Lord of War

In the 19th century, European man set out to conquer and colonize one of the last great frontiers on Earth: the mighty, untamed continent of Africa. "Civilized" technology, western warfare and white diseases had combined into a juggernaut force, making a prosperous home for Colonists everywhere they had set their feet.

The continent of Africa was different, however. European ways of conquest succeeded, yet efforts to colonize failed. Crops were impossible to grow in the dry soil, and where the soil was healthy, the immune system of the continent, in the form of the Mosquito, thrived. Yellow fever, Cholera, and the greatest killer of them all, Malaria, ravaged the white settlers and stunted the development of the last great branch of the European empire. Stubbornly, colonists hung around as long as they could still hope to turn a profit.

As the 19th century passed into the 20th, the colonies faded one by one, and sovereignty was returned to the Africans. However, they were left impoverished, divided, bitter towards each other due to restrictions imposed by their former occupiers (see Rwanda), and locked in feudal power struggles.

We soon learned that you don't have to rule a continent in order to make enormous profit from it.

This is the message conveyed by this excellent film, Lord of War, starring Nicolas cage as top international gun-runner Yuri Orlov. Working his way up from the bottom, he builds a fortune delivering the means to an end for a world bent on destroying itself.

With humor as biting and dry as the wind swept desert, coupled with a profound sense of desperation for the future of humanity at large, the film delivers with poignancy a message that is gaining strength thanks to numerous great efforts in Hollywood (see also: The Constant Gardener) regarding the numerous ways the world is fucking over Africa for it's own interests.

While treated largely as a comedy by it's marketing (which it is, though it is a black one), I was moved throughout the film and impressed by Cage's handling of the material without going too over the top.

It's message is delivered consistently, yet somehow the viewer is not condescended upon, or beat over the head with the heavy subject matter. Remove all the horrible truth from this movie, and say for a moment that this stuff doesn't actully go on in the real world, and you still have a great movie.

For me, most interesting part of the film comes during the closing of a deal with his brother Vitaly (played by Jared Leto, who challenges YOU to play a better drug addicted Russian from Brighton Beach) by his side. Vitaly has seen some of the horrors of war first hand, horrors that Yuri seems to have had little difficulty shrugging off and dismissing as not his problem. Recovering from drug addiction fueled by the trauma of his memories, Vitaly is in no state to act as the coldhearted businessman his brother needs him to be. Yuri must realize this himself, yet he watches Vitaly, who is the so-called fuckup of the family, going nowhere back in Brooklyn, so he pressures him to take part in this one deal.

The results are tragic. As Yuri is closing the deal for the sale of 2 truckloads of arms, Vitaly is overcome by his conscience. He overpowers a soldier, grabs a hand grenade and pulling the pin, he blows up one of the two trucks. He is immediately gunned down by the other soldiers.

Yuri maintains composure and sits back down at the table with his customer, but now is left with a dilemma. Without a word his customer removes half of his payment from the table. We are left to wonder if Yuri closed the remainder of the deal or not.

At another point, Yuri returns to his Monrovian apartment to find his chief rival arms dealer, tied and gagged and surrounded by the President of Liberia and his henchmen. The sadistic President urges Yuri to shoot the man in the head, yet Yuri is unable. The President grabs Yuri's arm, holding his finger to the trigger, telling him: "Say the word and I'll release him." Yuri, unable to pull the trigger himself, is equally unwilling to let his rival free by saying those words. The Liberian presses Yuri's finger as Yuri turns his head away, and the arms dealer is shot in the head.

The implication of this is clear. Yuri has contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, yet absolves himself because since he has never pulled the trigger, he therefore is not a killer. Now, given the choice to let his enemy go free, his is unwilling, yet he cannot pull the trigger himself and bear the burden of guilt. His entire life is built on this coping mechanism. Without it, he, like his brother Vitaly, would be utterly unable to function. Now it has been challenged at the deepest level.

In the end, Yuri escapes the clutches of the "law", who's name is Valentine (played well by Ethan Hawke), who in his world is as impotent as a gun without a bullet, though he is left by his wife and son, and disowned by his family because of his little brother's death.

The consequence for him has been the discovery of a conscience and the burden of guilt for his actions, yet in the end he continues on with his lucrative career. Why? Because he's good at it. He needs no other reason. After all he has seen and done and lost, Yuri Orlov emerges as a man who went to war with his conscience, and won.

Rating: 8 out of 10