Lord of War (2005)

Lord of War is a 2005 crime-drama film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol, co-produced by and starring Nicolas Cage. It was released in the United States on September 16, 2005, with the DVD following on January 17, 2006 and the Blu-ray Disc on July 27, 2006. The subjects reminds an Italian movie of 1974, While There's War There's Hope (original title: Finché c'è guerra c'è speranza) starring Alberto Sordi.


Cage plays an illegal arms dealer with similarities to post-Soviet arms dealer Viktor Bout.The film was officially endorsed by the human rights group Amnesty International for highlighting the arms trafficking by the international arms industry.

Plot: The film begins with a voice-over introduction by Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a Ukrainian-American gunrunner: Over 550 million firearms worldwide means one firearm per twelve people on the planet; he wonders how to arm the other eleven. Opening credits are set to the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth", and depict the life of a 7.62x39mm bullet: from construction in a Soviet Union weapons factory, to being shipped across the world to an African warzone, loaded into the magazine of an AK-47, and fired into the head of a child.

In the early 1980s, Yuri is visiting a Brighton Beach restaurant, where a Russian mobster kills two would-be assassins. He is inspired to go into the arms trade, comparing the constant need for weapons to the similar human need for food. At his father's synagogue, he contacts an Israeli to obtain an illegal Uzi. After completing the first sale, Yuri convinces his brother Vitaly (Jared Leto) to become his partner, and they leave their jobs at the family restaurant behind.

Yuri's first big break comes in the 1982 Lebanon War, when he sells guns to all sides of the conflict, despite witnessing war crimes and atrocities. As Yuri becomes more successful in the war's aftermath, his business comes to the attention of Interpol, and in particular idealistic agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke). Valentine is after glory rather than money, making it impossible for Yuri to bribe him as he does other government agents within Interpol and elsewhere.

During a sale in Colombia, a drug lord pays with six kilos of cocaine instead of cash, and shoots Yuri with one of his own pistols when the two argue; Yuri had wanted cash instead of drugs. Yuri relents, later finding the sale of the cocaine paid better than money would have. Vitaly takes one kilo to get high and becomes addicted. After several months, Yuri checks Vitaly into rehab, and continues alone. He lures childhood crush Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan) to a false photo shoot and subsequently marries her. They later have a son, Nikolai (Nicky).