Tagline: Where there’s a will, there’s a weapon.
“Lord of War” is the story of an arms dealer (Nicolas Cage) who reevaluates the morality of his occupation while on the run from an Interpol agent. Born in Ukraine before the break-up of the Soviet Union, Yuri Orlov’s family emigrated to America when Yuri was a boy, falsely claiming to be of Jewish descent. It is first of fraudulent identities for Yuri.
His parents open a kosher restaurant in Brighton Beach, New York. It is here as a young man that Yuri first glimpses the woman of his dreams — beauty queen, Ava Cordova. However, Ava doesn’t know Yuri exists.
Disillusioned with his life working in his parent’s struggling restaurant, Yuri witnesses a shoot-out between rival Russian mobsters. Lucky to escape alive, it is a pivotal moment in Yuri’s life. “You go into the restaurant business because ‘people are always going to have to eat.’ That was the day I realized my destiny lay in fulfilling another basic human need.”
Yuri convinces his younger brother, Vitaly, to join him in an arms dealing business. As Vitaly sarcastically remarks, “It’s a hell of a career move.” They find their niche in under-the-counter gunrunning, selling to regimes suffering under sanctions. “I sold guns to every army but the Salvation Army”. Yuri’s appetite for guns is matched only by his appetite for sex.
But Yuri is constantly under threat – forced to stay one step ahead of a rival arms dealer and a dogged Interpol agent, Jack Valentine. His younger brother discovers he has no stomach for the business and develops an addiction for cocaine. After checking Vitaly into a rehab clinic, Yuri goes it alone.
He engineers a meeting with the haunting Ava and embarks on an elaborate seduction. She believes he is the wealthy owner of an international transport business. As Yuri rationalizes it, “Some of the most successful relationships are based on lies and deceit. Since that’s where they usually end up anyway, it’s a logical place to start.” Ava and Yuri marry and have a child, a boy named Nicolai. Yuri is the perfect family man, ironically removing toy guns from his son’s bedroom.
However, Yuri is close to going broke trying to convince Ava how rich he is. Fortunately, Yuri gets a huge Christmas present in 1991 with the break-up of the Soviet Union. He immediately returns to Ukraine, knowing that there are enormous stockpiles of weapons in the former Soviet state and now no enemy.
Yuri conspires with his Uncle Dmitri, a Ukrainian army general, to sell the weapons. (In Ukraine alone between 1982 and 1992 over $32 billion in arms were stolen. No culprit has ever been caught or prosecuted. Many believe it is the greatest heist of the 20th Century.)
Yuri mostly sells to countries in war-torn Africa in contravention of dozens of arms embargoes that Yuri cleverly avoids. One of Yuri’s best customers proves to be African warlord Andre Baptiste, Sr., the ruthless dictator and self-declared President of Liberia.
By the mid-1990’s, Yuri’s wealth catches up to his lies about his wealth – even surpasses his lies. Yuri remains unsure how much Ava really knows about the true nature of his business or how much she chooses to ignore. It remains an unspoken subject.
Eventually, the atrocities in West Africa resulting from the influx of weapons bring greater pressure from Interpol and the international community. Agent Valentine arrests Yuri but can’t make the charges stick. One of Valentine’s subordinates begs to kill Yuri but Valentine would rather let Yuri walk if the price of stopping him is his own humanity.
Yuri’s double and triple lives are starting to catch up with him. A rival arms dealer is killed partly by Yuri’s own hand.
Yuri has never fired a gun before, let alone killed a man. He goes on a binge of booze and drugs in the worst neighborhood in Monrovia but survives – Yuri believes he has the curse of invincibility.
To make matters worse, Yuri is also under threat from his greatest nemesis – the woman he loves. Ava confronts him about his work.
For a short time, Yuri tries to become a legitimate businessman. But he cannot fight his true nature. It seems he is actually the addict of the family rather than his younger brother. He has to keep going because it makes him feel alive.
Yuri lies to Ava about his upcoming business trip and convinces Vitaly to accompany him on a job in Africa. The deal goes bad when Vitaly tries to intervene on behalf of a camp of defenseless refugees. Vitaly is gunned down in front of Yuri.
At this moment, Yuri faces a decision. He can destroy the arms shipment and lose his own life in the process or he can finish the deal. Yuri does what he has always done. He survives. With his brother lying dead on the ground, Yuri goes back to the negotiating table and finishes the deal. As long as Vitaly was alive, Yuri still had a conscience of some kind, even if his younger brother carried it for him. When Vitaly dies, what’s left of Yuri’s soul dies with him.
Returning to the U.S. with his dead brother’s body, Yuri is arrested at the airport. “I’ve smuggled millions of rounds of ammunition and the bullet that lands me in jail is found under my dead brother’s rib.”
Yuri’s parents ostracize him – blaming him for his brother’s death. Ava abandons him, taking their son with her. Agent Valentine finally has his man. It looks hopeless for Yuri except that no one has accounted for the world’s the planet and the U. most powerful arms dealer – the United States government. Yuri is on a first name basis with almost every despot, dictator and warlord onS. sometimes needs dealers like Yuri to ship arms to regimes they can’t be seen to be supporting. Yuri is released from jail. His penance is to keep selling arms – but the tragic Yuri is alone, now.
These production notes provided by Lionsgate Films.
Lord of War
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, Ethan Hawke, Eamonn Walker, Ian Holm, Sammi Rotibi, Steve J. Termath
Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Screenplay by: Andrew Niccol
Release: September 16, 2005
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, drug use, language and sexuality.
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $24,149,632 (33.3%)
Foreign: $48,467,436 (66.7%)
Total: $72,617,068 (Worldwide)