Lord of War is a 2005 crime drama film written and directed by Andrew Niccol, starring Nicolas Cage, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, and Ethan Hawke. Taking place in the early 1980s, Lord of War follows Yuri Orlov as he enters the illegal arms trade, eventually becoming a well known and unscrupulous gun runner. The film was released in the United States by Lions Gate Films on September 16, 2005, and was released internationally by Arclight Films. The film grossed US$72.6 million at the box office.
Shooting for the film began on July 19, 2004 which occurred primarily in the Czech Republic, New York City, and South Africa. Securing funding for the film was difficult as it was pitched shortly before the Iraq War, resulting in many American studios being unwilling to take it on. As a result, funding was achieved through debt taken on with Citibank West, the VIP3 German tax fund, and foreign sales. All remaining costs were paid by French producer Philippe Rousselet.
Review aggregators Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of over 62%, indicating "generally favorable reviews", while audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-". Critical reception was mixed. Many publications praised the opening sequence's messaging along with Cage's performance as Yuri. Others criticized the film's lack of focus and handling of Yuri's character.
Shortly after the film's release, human rights group Amnesty International endorsed it for highlighting the danger of an uncontrolled global arms trade.
A sequel for Lord of War was announced on May 8, 2023.
Plot
Yuri Orlov, the eldest son of a family of Jewish Ukrainian refugees, is visiting a restaurant on Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York where he witnesses a Russian mobster kill two assassins holding Kalashnikov rifles. The incident inspires him to go into the arms trade. After meeting a contact at his temple and completing his first sale of an Uzi sub-machine gun to a local mobster, Yuri convinces his younger brother Vitaly to become his partner.
The two brothers get their first break during the 1982 Lebanon War, where they sell weapons to both Israeli and Lebanese troops despite seeing the weapons be used to commit atrocities. As Yuri prospers, he eventually catches the attention of Interpol agent Jack Valentine. Valentine represents a unique threat to Yuri because he is after recognition, not money, and cannot be bribed. Vitaly becomes addicted to cocaine after a Colombian drug lord forces the brothers to accept several kilos of cocaine as payment. Yuri checks Vitaly into a drug rehabilitation clinic and continues alone. He uses his profits to seduce and marry his favorite model, Ava Fontaine.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yuri flies to Ukraine and illegally buys Soviet military hardware through his uncle, a former Soviet general who is overseeing the distribution of weapons to the newly formed Ukrainian Army. His uncle dies in a car bombing by Yuri's rival, arms dealer Simeon Weisz. Yuri expands his business to Africa, where he supplies Andre Baptiste Sr., a bloody Liberian dictator.
Valentine tells Ava that her husband is an arms dealer, prompting her to confront him. In response, Yuri starts trading timber and oil, but becomes frustrated with the lower profits of honest work. When Baptiste visits him in person and offers him the largest payday of his career, a stash of valuable blood diamonds, Yuri returns to crime. Ava follows him one day, unaware that Interpol is following her, and they both discover the shipping container that holds his arms-dealing office.
Yuri picks up Vitaly to assist him with a deal in Sierra Leone, where a militia force allied with Baptiste is preparing to destroy a refugee camp. Vitaly pleads with Yuri to abandon the deal after witnessing Baptiste's men kill a woman and child with machetes, but Yuri refuses, knowing that Baptiste's men would kill them. In response, Vitaly steals a pair of grenades and destroys a truck full of weapons, also killing Baptiste's son, before he is gunned down. Yuri is spared and receives half his payment for the remaining truckload. He pays a doctor to forge Vitaly's death certificate and remove the bullets from his body, but a missed bullet is found by customs officials, and Yuri is arrested. Ava divorces Yuri, and his parents disown him.
Valentine detains Yuri in anticipation of his trial and conviction, but Yuri is unfazed. He tells Valentine that a high-ranking officer will shortly knock on the door and insist on his release. He explains that while he is a criminal, his crime sometimes serves the interests of the U.S. government. Valentine hears a knock at the door, looks at Yuri for a moment, and rebukes him.
The cast also includes Sammi Rotibi as André Baptiste Jr, the son of André Baptiste Sr; Ian Holm as Simeon Weisz, an infamous arms dealer and rival to Yuri; Tanit Phoenix as Candy, Vitaly Orlov's girlfriend; and Eugene Lazarev, a Soviet Union general and Yuri's uncle.
Production
Pre-production
The idea for Lord of War originated prior to 2004 when an agent of the Creative Artists Agency gave Philippe Rousselet the script. It was summarized as a "Goodfellas in the world of arms dealing". Rousselet was impressed by the script but could not find an American studio that would take it on, as it was right before the beginning of the Iraq War.[3]
An additional setback was that scenes in the script were written to occur in up to 13 different countries, requiring filming in varying locations. At one point the film was going to make use of the United Kingdom tax fund Movision, but as the expected expenses increased, Section 48 laws disqualified the film from making use of it. South Africa provided financial incentives for filming, such as paying back 15% of all expenditures incurred within its borders.[3]
Rousselet reported to Variety that the financing necessary for the film was a mixture of debt taken on with Citibank West, the VIP3 German tax fund, and foreign sales. The remainder was paid by Rousselet.[3]
Production
Shooting began on July 19, 2004.[4] Production was primarily based in South Africa, the Czech Republic and New York City. Scenes in Ukraine were filmed in the Czech Republic, and scenes in Africa, the Caribbean, and Beirut were all taken in South Africa. Effort was taken to have extras that looked appropriate for every country depicted, both in attire and ethnicity. Due to the film's low budget, many scenes were constructed with only basic elements. One scene consisted entirely of 10,000 clay bricks and an extra in North African garb.[5]
Amir Mokri made it a point to have the camera move as Yuri moved, in reference to Yuri's constant travelling as an arms dealer.[5]
While filming in the Czech Republic, Niccol discovered it was cheaper to purchase real firearms rather than props, and so he purchased 3,000 Kalashnikovs. Most were sold back at a loss, though some were sawed in half to remove them from circulation. Niccol commented that he found it disturbing how easy it was to purchase them. Niccol met a variety of arms dealers during the production process, which he came to like. He attributed their likeability despite their profession to the fact that they were very good salesmen. A particular scene in the film featured a line of fifty T-72 tanks. These were provided by a source in the same country, and they told Niccol that he could use them until December, as they were needed back by then to sell to Libya. NATO had to be told about the tanks, as satellite imagery suggested a weapons build up in the country. Another sequence of scenes showed Yuri co-piloting an Antonov An-12 transport plane. The plane was provided by an arms dealer, with the plane was actively being used for transporting firearms during the time of production.[5][6][7]
Yuri Orlov inspiration
Viktor Bout (middle) in 2010. Publications claim that Yuri Orlov was inspired by 5 different gun runners, with some naming Bout in particular.[8]
Publications report that Yuri is based on five criminal arms dealers.[9][10][11]Forbes and The New York Times name Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer, as a specific source of inspiration. Yuri shares characteristics with Bout, and several events in Lord of War mirror actions attributed to him. For example, both men held the nickname "Merchant of Death", sold weapons to both sides of the same conflict, and traveled with multiple passports, among other similarities.[8][12][13]
Lord of War released theatrically on September 16, 2005.[1] Lions Gate Films provided distribution in the United States[15] while Arclight Films distributed in other territories.[4] The film grossed $9.4 million in the United States and Canada on its opening weekend, ranking number three in that box office category behind Just Like Heaven and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It grossed a total of $24.1 million in the same region, and $48.5 million internationally, for a total of $72.6 million.[1]
Critical reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 62% of 150 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.30/10. The website's consensus reads: "While Lord of War is an intelligent examination of the gun trade, it is too scattershot in its plotting to connect"[16]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 62 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[17] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B-" on an A+ to F scale.[18]
The opening scene of the film, showcasing the point of view of a bullet being made and eventually fired out of a rifle, was praised by critics and listed by the British Film Institute as an inspired opening sequence of the 21st century.[11][19][20]David Denby of The New Yorker characterized the sequence as "malicious wit" from Niccol, commenting that by forcing the audience to watch it, Niccol suggested that they were complicit in the sale of firearms.[21] In a review by Harry Haun, writing for the Film Journal Institute, he wrote that he wished the film was as direct and "head on" as the opening sequence was.[9] Rahul Hamid of Cinéaste stated that the "sensational opening effectively makes the same point that the film will explore... that violence around the world begins and ends directly at our doorstep."[22]
Praise was also given to Cage's performance as Yuri Orlov. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post stated that Cage was cast well for Yuri, writing that "he has the right scale and size to portray a man who isn't meant to resemble anyone real".[23] Stephen McIntire, writing for Business Record [Des Moines], wrote that Cage has a "trademark wisecracking screen persona", which he states the screenplay gave him a balanced combination of "witty dialogue" and "throwaway one-liners".[24] Brandon Zachary of Comic Book Resources stated that Cage's performance of Yuri was one of his most underrated characters, while Geoffry Macnab of Sight & Sound stated that "Cage's Yuri is so sleek and charismatic that most audiences will root for him".[25][26]
Some publications criticized the focus of the film, questioning if the narrative and messaging were properly balanced. In a review by the New York Amsterdam News, written by Natasha Grant, she characterized the narration by Cage as preachy without the audience being given a clear reason as to why they should care, stating the film may have been better as a documentary.[11] McIntire was critical of the film for "[playing] fast and loose with both external and internal facts." He goes on to state that the primary focus of the film is on the illegal sale of firearms, but the film concludes criticizing the sale of firearms by governments, which McIntire called a "blatant bait-and-switch".[24]Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called the film a "feature-length trailer crossed with a lecture", stating that Yuri and his brother were not anything more than "generic crooked businessman boating off... to the world's trouble spots", ending his review by writing that the film is "a dead pile of information in search of a movie."[27]Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Franscisco Chronicle, criticized the film for failing to answer questions regarding the logistics of gun-running that it introduces, stating "how does he move that weaponry... where does he store it, before he finds a buyer... and how does he pay for it - Visa?"[28]
Critics also took issue with the handling of Yuri's character. LaSalle wrote that Yuri is "a shell... meant to stand as an exemplar of all arms dealers", and that while the script had turning points for Yuri's character, each time having him "hitting rock bottom", it happens twice, resulting in LaSalle claiming that neither of them had meaning.[28] Haun referred to the character of Yuri as a "soft-focused... central character", and that due to the fact he was inspired by five different real-world individuals, the presence of only "anecdotal detail" resulted in the film having too little humanity that could make Yuri "understandable" to the audience.[9] Macnab stated that, despite Yuri being "sleek and charismatic", that it was ironic that he never changed throughout the film. He writes that in one particular scene, it appears Yuri is full of such intense self-loathing that he goes on a "booze and drug-fueled binge", but it does not have any narrative effect because he "always recaptures his composure". Macnab compared the writing of Yuri's conscience to Yuri's drug habit, being something that he is always able to get over, resulting in the critical nature of the arms trade coming across as ambivalent.[26]
Lord of War was released on DVD on January 17, 2006 and Blu-ray on June 27, 2006. A 4K UHD Blu-ray transfer of Lord of War was released on March 19, 2019.[31]
Sequel
A sequel to Lord of War, titled Lords of War, was scheduled to begin filming in the fall of 2023. It was delayed by eight months due to the Writer's Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA both going on strike. Cage is returning as Yuri Orlov, as well as producer, with Bill Skarsgård executive producing and playing his son. Rousselet is returning as a producer. FilmNation Entertainment is representing the film's international sales while CAA Media Finance is handling domestic rights.[32][33]
^ abcGrant, Natasha (September 15, 2005). "Walk a mile in a gun runner's shoes with 'Lord of War'". New York Amsterdam News. Vol. 96, no. 38. p. 22. ISSN1059-1818. EBSCOhost18877090.
^ abMcIntire, Stephen (September 19, 2005). "'Lord of War' misfires". Business Record [Des Moines]. Vol. 23, no. 38. p. 50. ISSN1068-6681. GaleA137013667.
