Release: 16 September 2005
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Staring:
- Nicolas Cage
- Jared Leto
- Bridget Moynahan
- Ian Holm
- Ethan Hawke
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. After sampling their profits, Vitaly becomes heavily addicted and eventually burns through an entire kilo. 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).
Yuri's second big break is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After Mikhail Gorbachev resigns on Christmas Day 1991, Yuri flies to the Ukraine and illegally buys tanks and weapons through his uncle, a former Soviet General. Expansion to Africa leads to Andre Baptiste Sr. (Eamonn Walker), a ruthless dictator waging a never-ending civil war in Liberia. During one flight into Africa, Yuri's cargo plane is intercepted and forced to land by a fighter jet commandeered by Jack Valentine and Interpol. He escapes arrest by landing outside of the nearby city, and by simply handing out the cargo to locals, he ensures no weapons are on the plane by the time Valentine arrives. Surveillance of Yuri and his activities continues at his home in the United States, however. Unable to charge Yuri, Valentine tells Ava he is an arms dealer, prompting her to confront him and demand he stop his illegal business. Yuri agrees, but is soon enticed back into arms trading by Andre Baptiste Sr., who offers him even greater payments in return for his exceptional skills as an arms dealer.
Yuri soon goes to complete a sale in Africa, where a militia force allied with Andre Baptiste Sr. is visibly preparing to destroy a refugee camp. When Vitaly sees the militia hack an escaping woman and child to death with a machete, he pleads with Yuri to walk away. Yuri refuses; if he backs out, the militia will simply kill the Orlov brothers along with the refugees. Taking matters into his own hands, Vitaly steals a pair of grenades and destroys one of the two trucks carrying the weapons being sold. Before he reaches the other truck, RUF soldiers shoot him. Yuri approaches his dying brother, and restores a grenade pin and tosses the inactivated grenade to one of the killers responsible. The diamond payment is halved for the remaining weapons.
At home, Ava follows Yuri to his secret shipping container of supplies. She leaves with son Nick, and Yuri's parents disown him after learning the truth. When the U.S. Customs finds a bullet in Vitaly's corpse, Valentine arrests Yuri, who predicts, correctly, that a knock at the door will signal his release as a "necessary evil" who distributes weapons so major governments can deny involvement. Despite his losses, Yuri returns to arms dealing. Yuri remarks that it's what he does best, and that arms dealers are most likely to inherit the world one day "because everyone else is too busy killing each other." His final advice to the viewer is, "Never go to war, especially with yourself."
An onscreen postscript exhorts private dealers to conduct less business than the five largest arms exporters - the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China - ironically, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Lord of War (2005) Full Movie
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