Lord Of War

And in a world like this where good men are punished and evil men walk off scott free, it’s hard to have faith in much of anything. But I have faith in a few of these movies.

DOMINO—Kiera Knightly stars in this Tony Scott flick about the model who turned into a bounty hunter as a last resort to stay out of prison. Based on a true story…sort of. It looks like a lot of fun as long as you can get past the fact that the subject of the film was recently found dead in a hotel room. But I didn’t know who the hell she was really, so I’m sure I can ignore it and just enjoy Kiera running around shooting people and looking hot. Especially since Christopher Walken is in it. I’m already in line.

WAITING…–A movie about waiters at a cheesy theme restaurant starring Ryan Reynolds. It looks so awful, and yet so good. I’m sure it’ll be on the same level as Van Wilder (maybe a little bit better), but I kinda liked Van Wilder. (Sorry. It’s funny.) And it’s got hot chicks and John Francis Daly (“Freaks And Geeks”), so I’m there.

SAW II—Are we really interested in this? The first one was so bad that I was NOT interested in seeing what else the killer could do. I would say that the preview looks good, but the preview to the first one looked awesome! Until I hear someone say that it’s good, I’m avoiding it.

Now, on to the more serious subject here.

Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) is a gunrunner. No, wait. He’s not just a gunrunner. He’s THE gunrunner of the late 80s and throughout the 90s. He sold to Nigeria, Afghanistan, most of the countries born out of the Soviet Union and hundreds of other countries. And he’s target number one for Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), the only honest Interpol agent that Orlov knows of.

Yuri got his younger brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), involved, but he didn’t have much of a taste for it. He actually felt responsibility for the kids who were killed by guns he helped sell. Weirdo.

Yuri’s job did, however, help him with the woman of his dreams, Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan).

Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, S1m0ne, The Truman Show) spent a lot of time with real gunrunners to get this character just right. Of course, I have no idea if he succeeded because I’ve never known any real gunrunners, but Nic was pretty perfect for it and the script was awesome. Yuri is totally charming, but he exudes an evil that, even though he’s the main character, makes it VERY difficult to feel any sympathy for him at all. Of course it doesn’t help that everything always seems to go right for him.

This is a movie that all gun enthusiasts should see. Anyone who has ever said, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people” should see this film. How can you NOT blame the guy who brought these guns to these people? How can a gunrunner not be at least a little bit to blame for the hostility in West Africa? How can the US not be to blame for supplying weapons to Iraq AND Iran in the 70s and 80s? Yes, they would have found a way, but they wouldn’t have had weapons as good as the ones we gave them. Things would not have escalated as fast or as far. Fewer people would have died. Perhaps even the World Trade Center wouldn’t have fallen.

But a political commentary is not the purpose of this review (although it’s CERTAINLY a purpose of the movie). I’m here to say that this movie is very good. It’s also a very important movie. It may not be perfect, but it does kind of remind me of Goodfellas. (Constant voice-overs, immoral protagonist, etc.) If you like any of these actors, Niccol or are interested in the lives of evil men who don’t think they’re evil, check this one out.