Lord of War is a great movie. Everything from the stunning opening credit sequence which features the journey of a bullet to the proceedings till the credits roll is a joy to behold. It also proves that under the right supervision Nicholas Cage is an actor you cannot take your eyes off from. Lord of War is a crime drama war film with great set pieces and a heart in the right place. Go watch it.

From the opening sequence showing a bullet approach the head of an "innocent"* African child to the entire slap-dash, never mind the details, narrative given by Nick Cage, there is roughly zero honesty here. It is typical Hackneyedwood "narrative".*How an "innocent" "child" comes to be the only person standing in the middle of a gun battle is best left to low-IQ imaginations of people who believe in films like this.ps: said "innocent" "child" was shown from the neck up. Panning back would have shown the rocket launcher he was holding. DUH!!!

A standard Sicilian wise guys' narrative packaged in a firearms mafia background and a very superficial attempt at that.Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) gets fascinated with gun business (rather unconvincingly) when he witnesses a mafia hit in his neighborhood. Convinced that illegal international gun trade is the way to go after a failed attempt to go legal, he partners with his brother Vitaly Orlov (Jared Leto) and embarks on a country hopping mission to arm every warlord he could contact with. Along the journey, he marries his high school sweetheart Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan), gets his brother addicted to cocaine, gets a righteous ATF officer Jack Valentine (Ethen Hawke) on his tail and keeps fighting his consciousness. Being a smooth operator he greases enough palms to stay ahead of the pursuit and competition, what happens when it gets personal is the rest of the story.While it is an interesting view of how the illegal international gun trade is run, what affects the overall experience is the lack of clarity. The director doesn't seem to make up his mind whether to present it as a biopic, a documentary or as a work of fiction – leaving it inconsistent and underdeveloped. Apart from the presentation, even the core script seems to be confused whether it should be a dark comedy, a satire or an honest serious view of the gun trade. Also there isn't enough research to surprise the viewer with facts that they wouldn't know of already – considering it was attempting the documentary approach for a moment. With its runtime over 2 hours, I remember looking at the clock quite a few times, however the pace picks up in the third act of the movie even though it walks a very familiar path. Nicolas Cage gives a decent performance as the smooth talking bootlegger and the rest of the cast does their best rallying around this weak script. Lack of clarity in terms of presentation, a very weak and superficial script does not do justice to a very sensitive and timely subject.

No doubt Nicolas Cage gives his performance in this film the best since "Leaving Las Vegas". This is also the best appearance to date of Bridget Moinhan former model who plays his wife. Ninety-nine percent of American films there are dozens of people killed if not millions but never have a face. In this film Andrew Niccol makes sure we know who those bullets hitting. The balls have a face in this film and face are usually innocent women and children. After this film you'll get heavy hearts and understanding the arms trade will never stop as long as the governments of the industrialized countries can make a few bucks. Those weapons will find their way to get into the hands of bin Laden or Hezbollah and the cycle of violence will probably never stop.this is an amazing film with very strong and sharp criticism of the relationship of some Arab states recognized weapons to enemies of their enemies. warmly recommended.