Lord of War

Pros: Hawke is decent, could have been better
Cons: too many one-liners, writing needed some help, too many voice overs

Yuri Olov is a resident of New York City, working for his parents at a family restaurant. His family is of Russian decent, but are now claiming to be Jewish in order to blend into their surroundings. His life is pretty uneventful, until he witnesses a ...

Pros: Cage, Hawke, Holm, Leto, Walker, Niccol's script and direction
Cons: It's a story with a familiar moral

As a writer and director, Andrew Niccol creates works that are, in essence, cinematic fables. His scripts of "Gattaca" and "The Truman Show" are lessons in how human nature cannot be controlled. Everybody will, in time, pursue their own direction in ...

Pros: Story, Nicolas Cage, Direction, Music Score, Cinematography
Cons: Dark subject

Lord of War (2005) “There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11? “ Yuri Orlov The Lord of War shows ...

Pros: Grim portrayal of things we usually close our eyes to
Cons: disjointed, too many stories, Cage's voiceovers

Standing in front of the automated ticket machine at the local movie theater, we were hedging on whether or not we wanted to wait two hours until the next showing of Red Eye when I noticed that Lord of War was starting in less than ...

Pros: Eamonn Walker is worth watching in this.
Cons: Mind-numbing. Nicholas Cage once again doesn't show any range beyond hangdog misery.

Think bullets. Think lots of bullets, the empty shell casings littering the ground as far as the eye can see, in the middle of smoking ruins, and a man in a natty, tailored suit with briefcase in hand surveying it all. Say hello, boys and ...

Pros: Cage’s performance; supporting actors.
Cons: A few plot holes.

My wife can’t stand Nicholas Cage, but I don’t share her opinion; I think he is one of the most talented and versatile actors on the silver screen today. And he pops up in the strangest movies, like Lord of War (2005), which is based on actual ...

Pros: Solid cast, good acting and a story based on actual events.
Cons: Shallow character development.

Yuri Orlov, Back then, I didn't sell to Osama Bin Laden. Not because of moral reasons, but because he was always bouncing checks. Directed by Andrew Niccol Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov Ethan Hawke as Agent Valentine Bridget Moynahan as Ava ...

Pros: Reminded me of the movie Blow, but with guns instead of drugs
Cons: Too preachy

They say, “Evil prevails when good men fail to react.” What they ought to say is, “Evil prevails.” Lord of War stars Nicholas Cage as an arms dealer who ignores his own morals until he gets in too deep with the gunrunning game. ...

Pros: Interesting, unsentimental, serious but entertaining film on a serious subject. Great action sequences and editing.
Cons: May seem propagandistic, but it's hard arguing against films condemning murder, rape and maiming.

"Got guns?" Anti-hero Yuri Orlov quips in a tense moment. "LORD OF WAR, a film with a number of flaws, would be easy to overestimate, but a mistake to dismiss. It concerns the nearly invisible core of a mechanism which, with every passing year, ...

Pros: Excellent performances by Ethan Hawke & Eamonn Walker, volatile and pertinent subject addressed realistically.
Cons: Violent and vulgar at times, has a bitter ending best described as a pyrrhic victory.

WARNING: Some major plot points are discussed and exposed in my review, if you want to remain completely in the dark on this film... you've been warned! - Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in ...

Pros: lacking in characterization, a bit cliche
Cons: the topic is still interesting...

And that’s about all that Lord of War has to say unfortunately. Much the way movies like Traffic and Blow were made to kind of show the world that drugs are an inevitable consequence of a corrupt world, Lord of War follows the same suit, but with a ...

Pros: Wonderful performances bring several layers to this intriguing movie.
Cons: This is a very serious issue, that seems to be unstoppable.

"It's none of our business what they do with it" "If we don't sell it to them, someone else will" These are the sentiments by which Yuri Orlov lives. And these sentiments are how he justifies being the world's most successful gun runner. And it's ...

Pros: some entertaining one-liners, interesting denouement, learned a little gun history
Cons: too many one-liners, too much narration, not enough story

For my 100th epinion, I thought I'd challenge myself and try my hand at writing a movie review. So bear with me and feel free to leave me comments. My husband heard about Lord of War from a friend of his who told him he's got to see it. So, ...

Pros: great visuals, interesting story
Cons: somewhat formulaic plot, emotional miscalculations

I must confess my attraction to this film as a kind of professional curiosity. I'm not an aspiring gunrunner, but I did write a script called Pride of Ownership, about a man who travels the globe selling nukes. My main character was a suited shark, ...

Pros: Entertaining and somewhat humorous (in a Swiftian way).
Cons: Story itself doesn't reveal anything new.

It may come as a surprise to discover that Nicolas Cage's international arms dealer isn't the most disagreeable character in Lord Of War. In fact, it may anger some to discover that his character is in fact an anti-hero of sorts. It may irritate them ...