Lord of War
September 18th 2006 01:42
I have mixed feelings about this film. I was keen to see it because I had read rave reviews about it and it sounded like a great concept for a film. But after seeing it, I can’t say it lived up to the hype.
It follows the story of Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian immigrant who is tired of doing nothing with his life and sees an opportunity in the gunrunning business. He starts small and works his way up in the lucrative industry to become the number one gunrunner in the world. His brother Vitaly is kind of thrown in there too, mostly to help the plot move along but the part he has to play clearly lacks a means to an end. He has no real purpose apart from an important plot twist which we all see coming anyway and the story in itself has few surprises.
Niccol relies on film school directorial choices that make the events predictable and stale, and his humour is often ill fitting and trite. Even from the beginning when Yuri says, “You don't have to worry. I'm not gonna tell you a pack of lies to make me look good. I'm just gonna tell you what happened”, I was unconvinced. Everything was a little too rosy for our main character and too convenient to be believable.
I love Nicholas Cage and usually can’t help but think he’s fantastic in everything he does, I mean, he is a fantastic, gutsy, intuitive actor but even he left me expecting more. He was too blasé, too comfortable, too calm and clever. Everything went his way and he never expected it not to. I needed more character flaws to draw me in. These were inhuman, unrealistic characters put in an all too realistic setting.
Lord of War is a surface film. It doesn’t delve into the world of gunrunning deeply enough, nor the lives of its characters. There is too much fence-sitting on behalf of the writer/director and unfortunately, this doesn’t make for a good film. It makes for bad reality television with all the good stuff cut for prime time viewing.
Perhaps this is the problem with writer/ directors. They are often too precious about their script/ film to make the important choices that need to be made and there’s no one there to question such choices or lack thereof.
Having said that, Lord of War is worth a look. There are some nice moments and great performances, even if the script isn’t sure where it is going at times. And in the end it isn’t beating you over the head with its message, which is refreshing in many ways.
Written and directed by Andrew Niccol, Lord of War runs for 122 minutes and is rated MA.
It follows the story of Yuri Orlov, a Ukrainian immigrant who is tired of doing nothing with his life and sees an opportunity in the gunrunning business. He starts small and works his way up in the lucrative industry to become the number one gunrunner in the world. His brother Vitaly is kind of thrown in there too, mostly to help the plot move along but the part he has to play clearly lacks a means to an end. He has no real purpose apart from an important plot twist which we all see coming anyway and the story in itself has few surprises.
Niccol relies on film school directorial choices that make the events predictable and stale, and his humour is often ill fitting and trite. Even from the beginning when Yuri says, “You don't have to worry. I'm not gonna tell you a pack of lies to make me look good. I'm just gonna tell you what happened”, I was unconvinced. Everything was a little too rosy for our main character and too convenient to be believable.
I love Nicholas Cage and usually can’t help but think he’s fantastic in everything he does, I mean, he is a fantastic, gutsy, intuitive actor but even he left me expecting more. He was too blasé, too comfortable, too calm and clever. Everything went his way and he never expected it not to. I needed more character flaws to draw me in. These were inhuman, unrealistic characters put in an all too realistic setting.
Lord of War is a surface film. It doesn’t delve into the world of gunrunning deeply enough, nor the lives of its characters. There is too much fence-sitting on behalf of the writer/director and unfortunately, this doesn’t make for a good film. It makes for bad reality television with all the good stuff cut for prime time viewing.
Perhaps this is the problem with writer/ directors. They are often too precious about their script/ film to make the important choices that need to be made and there’s no one there to question such choices or lack thereof.
Having said that, Lord of War is worth a look. There are some nice moments and great performances, even if the script isn’t sure where it is going at times. And in the end it isn’t beating you over the head with its message, which is refreshing in many ways.
Written and directed by Andrew Niccol, Lord of War runs for 122 minutes and is rated MA.
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Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Umm, I thourougly enjoyed the film, I think it got a little too political for my tastes but I also found a new appreciation for Nicolas Cage with his performace which was just made for him (and wouldn't be surprised if Andrew NIccol had made it for him)
Though its not as good a film as ANdrew Niccols 'Gattaca' which was just awesome.
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Its not a perfect film but stands as one of the better modern action films. I have the American 2 disc DVD which has spectaular extras, an anecdote filled commentary and sublime making of feature taht gives a lot of real life background info.
Fans should skip the Oz release and order this infinetly better version.