Lord of War: Grade B

B

Lord of War

Nicolas Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto

Cage is an international arms dealer, selling death for cash regardless of politics. Hawke as the interpol agent wants to be Tom Cruise. Eamon Walker as a crazy African dictator is a standout. It’s a narrative of how Cage's business goes; there's no particular plot. Individual, disconnected scenes provide dramatic tension. But the picture does vividly convey the sense of the arms trade and its horrific consequences, a serious lesson for those who are uninformed. John Le Carre did a similar story in The Night Manager a few years back. This story is handled with a light-hearted, almost comic tone, probably to offset the dark side of the reality. It's a grating marketing compromise. The result is that the characters and scenes are all two dimensional cardboard cutouts. Cute, funny warlords and merchants of death. Ha ha. The comedy is punctuated with sudden violence, however, so there is some balance. Cage's self-justifying moralizing falls flat so we don't really know what makes him tick. Leto acts his heart out, which is noticeable because nobody else does. There’s something weird going on with the green lighting. Memo to art director: people do not have green beards. Reviewed 2/20/06.