Friday, September 23, 2005
Friday Movie Review
Lord of War is what passes for a thoughtful geopolitical treatise made by earnest wanna-be do-gooders. It says at the end that it was based on true events. What that phrase means in the Hollywood language is that the movie was set on planet Earth sometime during recorded history. This one happened to be set mainly in the 90s all over the World, but a lot of time is spent in West Africa and the Ukraine. What do those two places have in common? Apparently, the common thread is the Automat Kalashnikov Model 47, which is the assault rifle the Nicholas Cage character helps steal from the Ukraine and sells to rebels and governments in Liberia and next-door Sierre Leone. That's the story the movie follows, but Cage's character, Yuri Orlov, sells weapons to anyone.
Hard to imagine a more cynical look at modern arms merchants. It's 122 minutes long but feels longer. There is some sex (not a lot though) and violence. Pretty good first scene regarding the manufacture of a cartridge, 7.62 x 39mm, Russian assault rifle round, and its ultimate use. (Have to doubt they're casting about sparks as they manufacture cartridges--bad mix gunpowder and welding sparks). In structure, this movie is remarkably similar to the film biography Blow about drug dealing George Jung played by Johnny Depp. The arc of success to ruin; the gaining of eveything and its loss; the ingenuity of the criminal and the square plodding of the police (in this movie distilled into one character played, adequately, by Ethan Hawke). It's virtually the same movie. Jared Leto is the drug addled younger brother (playing his same character from Requiem for a Dream but without the emotional connection). Leto looks about the same as he did on the legendary TV show My So Called Life, and his botox method of acting hasn't changed much either. Is a good looking guy, though. Another familiar face is Eamonn Walker, who was jailed revolutionary Kareem Said on the TV show Oz. He plays actual dictator of Liberia Andre Baptiste. Finally, there is totally misused Ian Holm as a rival arms merchant.
I didn't feel like I really learned anything. There was no eye-opening moment. And the message that the gun merchants are the catalyst of true suffering in the World, mainly Africa, apparently, is wholly undercut by most people's memory of Rwanda and the deadly use machetes were put to in April, 1995. We know you don't need guns to have a bath of blood, you just need hatred. So stop with the pontification regarding firearm sales. Still, despite its ultimate failure as a movie, there were scenes in it that will haunt me for a long time--like the little girl holding up her stump of a right arm and asking if it will grow back. But that shows how poorly aimed the intellectual force of the movie is. The little girl is certainly showing a machete wound not a gunshot wound, so the single most effecting scene in the movie has nothing to do with arms sales.
In another scene, the almost always reliable AK misfires twice. Cage offers to help the shooter even though he is the target. That's the microcosm for this movie, a series of unlikely misfires.
Hard to imagine a more cynical look at modern arms merchants. It's 122 minutes long but feels longer. There is some sex (not a lot though) and violence. Pretty good first scene regarding the manufacture of a cartridge, 7.62 x 39mm, Russian assault rifle round, and its ultimate use. (Have to doubt they're casting about sparks as they manufacture cartridges--bad mix gunpowder and welding sparks). In structure, this movie is remarkably similar to the film biography Blow about drug dealing George Jung played by Johnny Depp. The arc of success to ruin; the gaining of eveything and its loss; the ingenuity of the criminal and the square plodding of the police (in this movie distilled into one character played, adequately, by Ethan Hawke). It's virtually the same movie. Jared Leto is the drug addled younger brother (playing his same character from Requiem for a Dream but without the emotional connection). Leto looks about the same as he did on the legendary TV show My So Called Life, and his botox method of acting hasn't changed much either. Is a good looking guy, though. Another familiar face is Eamonn Walker, who was jailed revolutionary Kareem Said on the TV show Oz. He plays actual dictator of Liberia Andre Baptiste. Finally, there is totally misused Ian Holm as a rival arms merchant.
I didn't feel like I really learned anything. There was no eye-opening moment. And the message that the gun merchants are the catalyst of true suffering in the World, mainly Africa, apparently, is wholly undercut by most people's memory of Rwanda and the deadly use machetes were put to in April, 1995. We know you don't need guns to have a bath of blood, you just need hatred. So stop with the pontification regarding firearm sales. Still, despite its ultimate failure as a movie, there were scenes in it that will haunt me for a long time--like the little girl holding up her stump of a right arm and asking if it will grow back. But that shows how poorly aimed the intellectual force of the movie is. The little girl is certainly showing a machete wound not a gunshot wound, so the single most effecting scene in the movie has nothing to do with arms sales.
In another scene, the almost always reliable AK misfires twice. Cage offers to help the shooter even though he is the target. That's the microcosm for this movie, a series of unlikely misfires.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 7:50 AM 
