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Lord of War is a 2005 crime drama starring Nicholas Cage, Jared Leto, and Ethan Hawke. The film depicts the character Yuri Orlov, an international arms dealer loosely inspired by several real-world gun runners, particularly Viktor Bout, who supplied civil wars in Africa and the Middle East throughout the 1990s and 2000s.
The film is overall well made and a satisfying watch. The real criticisms come with Nicholas Cage's performance as well as some seemingly disrespectful depictions of dark subjects and themes such as child militarization and illegal arms dealing. While the film is strictly against these concepts in writing, it often does not treat them with the respect they require and in some cases downright satirizes them.
Starting with a critique of the performances, Nicholas Cage's is the most noteworthy. While the performance itself is quite good, it feels disingenuous at times. It can be best described as "Marvel Walter White" meaning he often has dialogue that stands in juxtaposition to situations he finds himself in. For example, in one scene, he is intercepted by INTERPOL agents aboard his smuggling ship. When being questioned, his whimsical attitude doesn't display confidence but rather psychopathy (which let's be honest, Cage is way more suited to play). Another minor note is Nicholas Cage being the one to portray Yuri in the first place. Considering Cage was one of the producers of the film it makes sense he would choose himself for the leading role. He is the same age throughout the film despite said film taking place across more than a decade. While Cage does a good job nonetheless, it is noticeable, it is strange, and it does not help the film.
The next topic of discussion is the portrayal of real-world controversial concepts, such as child soldiers and arms dealing. When it comes to the latter of the two, the film does a decent job of showing the ways weapons are "recycled". Arms going from a nation as prestigious as the Soviet Union all the way to unorganized extremist militias. Once again, combined with Cage's performance and the tone of the film in general it feels that the topic isn't taken as seriously as it should. The representation of child soldiers is even worse. The film objectively says the subject is bad, but at the same time it treats it as a bit, especially with the iconic "Life of a Bullet" opening credits sequence where it concludes with a child being shot. To reiterate, the film doesn't outright see child-soldiers as a joke, but sometimes it feels that way.
Despite complaints about film, it is still an enjoyable watch. Nicholas Cage is primarily the reason for this. If you have ever seen a film he stars in you would know. His certain style of charisma is always attractive and remains so here (with the drawbacks mentioned earlier). The film has mediocre to above average reviews on sites like Rotten Tomatoes, and one can imagine the complaints put forth in previous paragraphs are ones critics at the time had as well.
Gunner Farrell is a member of the Poudre Press and focuses on writing critiques and analysis on popular media such as film and video games.
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