Lord of War

Lord of War (Director: Andrew Niccol)

Niccol wrote and directed the fine Gattaca and the subpar Simone. He wrote the screenplay for Spielberg's The Terminal, and my favorite, Peter Weir's The Truman Show.

Well, you know you're in a time of political unrest when you start seeing a ton of politically-themed movies. We had The Interpreter and The Constant Gardener both point out the flaws with worldly matters this year, and here, we have a slightly more conspiratorial look at the shady dealings of government. You think that Hollywood might have Africa on its mind lately?

Nicolas Cage plays Ukrainian immigrant Yuri Orlov, a gun dealer who along with brother Vitaly (Jared Leto) sells his wares to the dictators and the government figures who want to wage their wars as cheaply as possible. Of course, cheap is still highly profitable to Orlov, and he slowly builds an empire through these men. His wealth is such that he's even able to stage a meeting with supermodel Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan, Tom Brady's fiancee) and eventually marry her. Ahh, the good life. Cracks start forming though, when he has to deal with an African dictator Andre Baptiste (Eamonn Walker), a rival gun dealer Simeon Weisz (Ian Holm), and especially Interpol's up-and-comer Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke).

The interesting part of this movie is how Orlov gets his guns, and how he continues to be able to find loopholes in the system that basically keep him out of trouble. This is the most damning aspect of the movie, very intelligent in its approach, not feeling ultra-liberal in its criticism of Bush and pals. I find that refreshing, considering we have so much meaningless bile floating through the media about the U.S. government. There are some great scenes here and some great throwaway scenes (when an African man sees the aftermath of the Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman crime scene, he says, "When I go to America, there's no way I'm going to live in Brentwood.") Cage somehow pulls off being a sympathetic character, although everything that happens to him is justified.

This is likely to be the best movie of this weekend, and I can see why it got a September 16 release date. It's a hard sell, especially in this kind of America. It's kind of like Three Kings, in a way. It's got things to say, it's entertaining, but it doesn't exactly make you feel great. But you don't want to miss this.