'I was an equal opportunity merchant of death'
Lord of War 6.4
SPOILERS
Nic Cage stands in a warzone, surrounded by thousands of bullet casings.. gunshots are heard in the distance, he turns to camera and states his intentions. Literally speaking- to arm everybody in the world. Symbolically speaking- to expand his arms business. The opening credits play over an extended sequence where we follow a bullet POV in it's journey from factory to buyer, to weapon, to the head of a child soldier. So we know already that we are dealing with a business and businessman devoid of ethics, but it is being shown in an interesting way with mellow music, so to disarm us. Next thing we see him stood in the center of a cross-shaped pier - that could be read in two ways.. it would usually suggest he is something of a hero, or could suggest crucifixion, perhaps time will tell. We then follow him through his early life showing how he grew up in a violent migrants community, 'Little Odessa'. Many great films show New York of this era to be a highly multicultural melting pot, from once upon a time in America to Do the right thing. I can't help but thinking more time spent there would have been interesting, but there is too much of his later life to get in. He works his way up to a major arms dealer taking advantage of political strife.
An interesting thing I thought was that in the first half it never seemed like a dangerous thing for him to be doing, there wasn't much tension and certainly was no threat from a strangely under developed strand about Ethan Hawke's investigation into his affairs. On his way up he is dismissed by Ian Holm, a big gun runner, for being small fry, setting up something of a rivalry which was predictably going to swing back the other way. He's so focused on making big money at any cost just like a Jordan Belfort type, although interestingly by the end he is offered all sorts of other things as payment instead of money.
I was quite interested in the writing and portrayal of the character, I found the whole film strangely neutral to his cause. Is the film rooting for him or not? Are we meant to be? He calls himself the merchant of death but I think that is flattering.. the character is actually quite dull. He's shown often as a smart businessman with lots of aptitude but no muscle, and not all that much in the way of street smarts. This in itself isn't really an issue since there are other examples of this working greatly in films, like Sam Rothstein in Casino or even Michael Corleone in Godfather. Films, as in life, are littered with characters who profit from death and destruction - from Harry Lime to Tony Montana to Frank Lucas - but the issue is I found him quite a forgettable one. He's not a deadly gangster or a hot head (Tony Montana), very cold and calculated (Frank Lucas, or the two listed above), or even solely selfish and morally objectionable (Harry Lime)
He is pretty level headed, he plays the law to the T, but he falls inbetween the above character traits and really lacks charisma because if it. He is clearly detestable but not atall evil - since he has no clout, he is even outmuscled and intimidated by his customers. The film seems to know all of this as he is shot very neutrally, often you will see characters in the 'hero shot' (looking up from ground level) or maybe a slow zoom into their face as they are talking, both of which suggest power/danger. At no point did i feel like he posed much of a threat or was going to get the better of anyone. Also there wasn't much time spent on getting into his head, which I think would be crucial in a story like this.
All of this makes it a curious role for Cage, he does unhinged so well but this doesn't have alot of that in it, it seems like a slightly underwritten role that any half decent actor could do. I was waiting for a major event or a shift of tone to happen and for Cage to become a different character, but even when his brother is killed in front of him, he hardly reacts. He doesn't even particularly learn a lesson, there was no empathy or sympathy, hatred or disdain towards him. In the great films of this sort, the audience is often conflicted about the main character, with this there wasn't enough going on to get to that level, I was neutral, which is an odd response and a missed opportunity from the film's perspective.
The dialogue writing had the same issues for me, alot of it sounded good but it wasn't interesting enough. There were so many quotes I made note of, but most of them were saying the same sort of thing. The dialogue scenes and the character investment, which should be a priority, seem to all be very straight forwardly, almost lazily done. His narration i thought was interesting. It was delivered in a particularly droll tone, as if he was bored with telling the story. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was so similar sounding to Danny's (Edward Furlong's) commentary throughout American History X, as if he is someone who has seen too much to ever get over and has somewhat list his life perspective.
So in a way the storytelling side of directing was severely lacking for me, although the best bit of the film was the cinematography and the look. The intro especially is shot with real personality and looks good and there were lots of nice touches and images i enjoyed e.g. the gun firing making kerching noises, 'dead slow' speed setting on the ship, cage sitting on a toppled statue of Lenin, a kid holding the AK made of wire and a vulture eating a dead man in the street. There were also some good tunes in the soundtrack, it's always great to hear Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah playing as things start to crumble.. although it didn't add anything to the scene.
The whole sequence when he lands on the road in Africa was silly. Firstly the plane coming into land on the road and stopping just before a baby just sat there??!! A conscientious, law abiding cop leaving a prisoner for 24 hours in the middle of nowhere surrounded by armed molitia with no water etc?! And the fast forward scene of the African community stripping the plane down overnight immediately after it is unguarded, even though armed police were just there and the plane was full of guns.. I didn't really buy that, although it is possible.
That last point is a good example of the film.. the actual events aren't as interesting as the way it was shot. It may have been trying to convey some greater meaning but for me it missed the target. The message of the film seems to be that things like warfare and men like Yuri can't be stopped, he says at the start that violence is in our nature.. and seems to prove that. In fact from a moral standpoint, especially the Africans seem happy to kill emotionlessly - i winder if that was a conscious decision from a script point.
The director Andrew Niccol also made the pretty good Gattaca and the decent In Time, both were big ideas Sci-Fi and worked well as they committed to the premise and built convincing worlds around them. This i thought, overall, was nothing more than a pretty unintelligent, style over substance faux biopic about a mostly uninteresting character with a nice look but no great surprises. Slightly disappointing, it could have been much more.
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