In the opening sequence of the film Lord of War treats the audience to the on-screen birth of a bullet. In the recesses of a mechanized womb, a casing is fitted, and a fresh metal mouth nourished with gunpowder. Several robotic arms come forth to cap the round, and with a cold violence portending its later use, the shell is fused. The bullet is now ready for the assembly line. We watch as it shuffles through the inspection along with the rest, both frightening and enticing us with the shimmer of some sort of primal candy.
The film itself, which stars Nicolas Cage as expert arms runner Uri Orloff, works in much the same fashion as a weapons assembly line. It rolls along at a steady, almost stubborn pace, and is leanly muscular in the sense that all of its components work together towards a single-minded vision. Lord is also, however, episodic to the point of redundancy, and because we are constantly aware of that which is being manufactured (as with the bullet), we are privy to its goal from the moment of conception.
The problem is encompassed by the character of Uri Orloff, a first generation Ukrainian immigrant living in Little Odessa with his hard-working family. He has a good business sense but as of yet, no business. Out of options, he sells his first Uzi in a motel room, and an addiction cloaked in refined titanium is born.
Director Andrew Niccol, whose writing credits include Gattaca and The Truman Show, seems to do well with stories of driven individuals. Unfortunately, he makes a fatal error in Lord of War by quarantining Uri's character from viewers who labor so thoroughly to relate to him. As Uri climbs the ladder of the arms-dealing business, he changes suits, he switches women, and he hops continents. Uri himself, though, never grows, and therefore, neither do the viewers.
Early on in the film, Uri proposes to his brother Vitali, a struggling chef played by Jared Leto, that maybe all men are just "dogs on two legs." The line is Uri in so many words, but is uttered before the idea of gun running has even entered his mind. His rather inexplicable belief in the evil tendencies of man serves as not only the key to his success, but also as the unwavering foundation of his character. Even as the repercussions of his work begin to hit closer to home, Uri is so convincingly indifferent that the audience becomes numb along with him.
This is not to say that Lord of War is not an important film, let alone a valiant one. It's a mainstream movie that takes it upon itself to show warfare as the most horrifically profitable commodity on earth, and the ease with which we, especially Americans, not only turn a blind eye towards it but fuel its vicious cycle as well. Through Uri, the film argues that the two are one and the same.
It's a worthy message indeed, one that can and should be applauded. But a good film must be more than a good message. Much like Paul Haggis' Crash, this year's earlier issue-film and critical darling, Lord of War's story is compromised by its own message-obsessed agenda. Should we attempt to relate to Uri's selfish addiction, and in doing so realize our proximity to that evil? It would seem that this is indeed the ultimate goal of the film, but because we are never let inside of Uri's character, we are never led inside of ourselves to exhume our own thoughts on the weapons trade and its victims. Viewers relish when filmmakers give them issues to chew on. But they would also hope that the protagonists of such films take a few bites as well.