Wathced Lord of War today. You can watch the trailer here. At first, I didn’t really know what to expect of this movie. I saw the trailer and knew the premise of it was about an illegal arms dealer. But what exactly was the story going to be about. It turned out pretty good, but I wouldn’t rate it as highly as the IMDB users, who gave it a 7.5. But I do have to give it to them for making a pretty neat poster.
Spoilers:
Nicholas Cage stars as Yuri in this movie as a Ukraine refugee who fled to America during the 1st World War or was it the 2nd. It doesn’t really matter. His family even converted from Catholics to Jewish to avoid being caught (from who, it wasn’t really ever clear). They own a little restaurnt and Nicholas Cage was always trying to think of easier ways to make money. Turns out weapons had the best margins. Not regular sellings to local gangs. Those were chump change and too much competition already. The margins were too low. The money was to be made from selling it to countries at war.
At first, his brother was in on it, but he got sick of seeing people get killed with the guns he sold. He decided to do cocaine to hide from his conscience, MAJOR SPOILERS [ but Yuri never figured it out until his brother gets shot to death trying to destroy the weapons some time later in the movie. ]
Actually, one thing I never got was why Yuri continued to do what he did? Was it because that gave him purpose? Did he not have compassion for the people that were getting killed? Right before his eyes? He had so much money at one point in time, I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t quit. Let’s backtrack a bit. He was in love with this girl since the age of 10. How he managed to get his dream girl to marry him and even have a kid is somewhat beyond me. I guess with money, it makes things a lot easer. Eva (his wife) isn’t really that demanding of an expensive life-style either. Eva never did question once what Yuri did. She told him she didn’t want to know. I guess ignorance is bliss. However, as an immigrant, Eva’s parents were also killed by civil war by weapons sold by arms dealer like Yuri.
All this time, there has been a detective after Yuri. Some interpol team led bye someone named Valentine. Also, sometime in the middle of this movie, the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union countries had so much arms in their arsenal, Yuri gave them a proposal they couldn’t reject.
Back to the quitting. Valentine had approach Yuri’s wife because after many years of tagging Yuri, he wasn’t able to get much dirt on him. Eva declined to help them and confronted Yuri about this. Yuri said he’d give up the arms deals and try living normally, but life was just not as exciting anymore. He was good with arms dealing and was invincible. The only thing that can hurt him or make him weak was his wife. After 4 months of quitting, Yuri once again returns to the arms business, which ultimately led to his brother’s death.
When he came back, he was under arrest because his wife had apparently gave him up after he went back in. However, the coolest part of the movie came in the next few minutes.
MAJOR SPOILERS:
Let me tell you what’s going to happen.
This way you can prepare yourself.
Soon there’s going to be a knock on that door and you’ll be called outside.
In the hall, there will be a man that outranks you.
First, he’ll complement you on the fine job you’ve done in making the world a safer place,
that you’re to receive a commendation and promotion,
and then he’s going to tell you I’m to be released.
You’re going to protest. You’ll probably threatened to resign.
But in the end, I will be released.
The reason I will be released is the same reason you think I’ll be convicted.
I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile sadistic men calling themselves leaders today.
But some of those men are the enemies of your enemies.
And while the biggest arms dealer is your boss, the President of the United States,
who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year.
Sometimes it’s embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns.
Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can’t be seen supplying.
So, you call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I’m a necessary evil.One thing that wasn’t ever made clear was… did he get AIDs? He did have sex with some random African woman and 1 in 4 of them has AIDs. However, it did mention he was invincible shortly after since some guy with an AK-47 tried to shoot him, twice, but both times the gun got jammed.