A remarkable, audacious, near-flawless piece of filmmaking, Lord of War may just be the first great film of the year. Lord of War takes a little known, underreported subject, the shadowy, unethical world of international arms dealers and delivers an satirical, polemical critique wrapped around an incisive character study.

Lord of War also heralds writer/director Andrew Niccol's admission into the front rank of English-language filmmakers. In his debut film, Gattaca, Niccol showed considerable promise. Gattaca explored the ethical, moral, and social ramifications of genetic engineering in an antiseptic, dystopian world and, to a lesser extent (for obvious reasons), the screenplay for The Truman Show, directed by Peter Weir and starring Jim Carrey as Truman (the script's darker, satirical edge was minimized due to Carrey's hoped-for participation).

After a bravura title sequence, which follows a bullet from manufacture in a munitions factory in Eastern Europe to the end user in a desperately poor, war-torn country in Africa, Lord of War introduces the audience to the central character, Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage), an international arms dealer standing in a village ruined by war. Lord of War then unfolds in flashback via confessional voice over narration, beginning in 1982, introducing us to a young, ambitious Orlov and his family. Yuri's father, it seems, has become what he pretended to be to enter the United States, a devout Jew. Pulling his younger brother Vitali (Jared Leto) into his plans, Yuri departs for Europe and the Middle East.

At the Berlin Arms Fair, a rival arms dealer, Simon Weisz (Ian Holm) rebuffs Yuri's overtures. In Lebanon, Yuri finds more success (the United States military has left piles of unguarded weapons after a hasty withdrawal). Yuri happily sells rifles and submachine guns by the kilo. From there, Yuri's career takes an upward path into wealth and power. He uses his wealth to successfully seduce a teenage crush, Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan). He openly lies to her about his career, which she initially accepts without question.

On the surface, Yuri is a respectable businessman. His parents know better. So does Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), an Interpol agent who becomes Yuri's sometime nemesis. Fast-forward to 1991: Yuri greets the collapse of the Soviet Union happily. Yuri's uncle, a general in the Ukrainian army, becomes Yuri's new business partner, helping Yuri acquire military hardware from the newly liberated Ukraine (according to the film and the press notes, more than $32 billion dollars worth of military hardware was stolen). Yuri's business rival, Simon Weisz, appears in the Ukraine, hoping to benefit from the unused stockpiles of weapons. Valentine also makes an appearance, only to be frustrated once again.

Yuri's business dealings also him face-to-face with the arbitrary and capricious dictators that riddle the developing world. Andre Baptiste, Sr. (Eamonn Walker), the “president” of Liberia (he's modeled on the former dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor), proves to be Yuri's best (and most insistent) customer, while also magnifying Yuri's worst impulses, calling Yuri on his ambivalence toward arms dealing (Yuri continually justifies his career with the suggestion that someone else would step into his place and by keeping himself at a distance from the use and effects of the weapons he sells). All this, of course, leads inevitably to a crisis of conscience, fuelled by Yuri's encounters with Valentine and his wife's increasing suspicions about his career.

If, however, audiences are expecting a traditional “rise-fall-redemption” narrative, they're likely to be disappointed. Niccol delivers something completely different and, ultimately, much more satisfying, a character study that leads into tragedy. If anything, Niccol appears to have been influenced by one of the few “true” masterpieces of the 1990s, Martin Scorcese's Goodfellas, in the structure that episodically spans several decades, an egocentric anti-hero as the central character, and voice over narration that functions as counterpoint, revealing the central character's flaws, even as he's blissfully unaware of the disconnection between what he says and the reality around him.

Not surprisingly, with a charismatic, well-written character at its center, the other characters suffer in contrast, both in their respective character arcs (Ava and Vitali's especially) and their minimal, intermittent screen time. Simon Weisz seems to function primarily to deliver a key line about the need to choose sides, easy to do before the end of the Cold War (Weisz, it seems, is the rare arms dealer who structures his deals in line with his finely developed sense of ethics and justice). Vitali's character arc proves to be the most predictable and unsatisfying. Even with Yuri's narcissism and egotism, viewers are expected to accept Yuri's decade-long inability to understand his brother's prolonged descent into addiction and despair.

Performance wise, Nicholas Cage gives a restrained, unaffected, unmannered performance, conveying Yuri's blissful amorality with seemingly effortless ease. Cage also delivers the voice over narration with a precise mix of knowing cynicism and unselfconscious humor, even when he's delivering exposition-heavy voice-over narration. As the ruthless, capricious president of Liberia, Andre Baptiste, Sr., Eamonn Walker deserves special mention for delivering a caricature-free performance. Bridget Moynahan, however, struggles in an underwritten, undermotivated role as Yuri's wife. Ethan Hawke suffers from similar problems: his character appears only intermittently and when he does, it's to deliver an on-the-nose sermon about the evils of arms dealing. As Vitali, Jared Leto credibly reflects the inner turmoil Yuri should be undergoing over the course of two decades.

Ultimately, Andrew Niccol's confident direction and incisive writing ensure that Lord of War's flaws are minimal (and certainly forgivable), Even as Niccol delivers facts, history, and ideas he always follows universal standards for good storytelling, i.e., to entertain his audience first and enlighten them second.

As Lord of War ends, viewers receives both, with the last shot bringing the audience full circle to the opening scene, showing us a lonely, tragic figure, followed by a title card informing the audience that the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China are the world's chief arms exporters (they're also the only permanent members of the United Nations Security Council).

With the recent release of The Constant Gardener, a political thriller that tackles “Big Pharma” (multinational pharmaceutical companies that often put profits above lives), we may be seeing a resurgence of ambitious, politically themed filmmaking. Not surprisingly, both films share a visual style (i.e., the desaturated color palette first mainstreamed in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic) and similar locations (e.g., Kenya in The Constant Gardener and Liberia in Lord of War, one mired in seemingly insurmountable poverty exacerbated by the spread of the AIDS virus, the other mired in hopelessness and violence. Like The Constant Gardener, Lord of War was financed independently (Nicholas Cage served as producer).

© Mel Valentin, 15th September, 2005