Lord of War

[Animal Boything]

I highly recommend this movie. Nicolas Cage gives a wonderful performance as an arms dealer who survives by ignoring his own conscience, alongside a great supporting cast. It's tense and tightly paced, and manages to be both funny and disturbing throughout. It's based on real events, and it provides a fair amount of food for thought. A few turns of the plot are fairly predictable, but forgivably so. It's a frightening look at the seamy underbelly of world politics, told with a gangster-movie flair. The cinematography is amazing. Go see it!

[grady]

You beat me to it Animal Boything...anyways

I saw this film earlier today and thoroughly enjoyed it. After Andrew Niccol's most recent film in 2003, Simone, I was a bit skeptical about what he would do next. Not only is wonderfully crafted(great cinematography, production design, editing) but the acting is top notch from Nicholas Cage, Jared Leto, and Ian Holm. While watching it I was reminded of The Constant Gardener, but this film is much more sardonic and apathetic in it's view of the world and the dominance of western powers. After my initial wave/rush of enjoyment passed and I was thinking more about the film walking home from the cinema, I liked Lord of War more than The Constant Gardener, but I don't think the film is necessarily going to go over too well with most audiences for it's stance regarding war and the economics of war.

All of this aside, make the effort to seek this film out, I know it's playing in a somewhat limited release that while playing in a wide variety of cities, it may only be at one or two cinemas per a city.

And finally, for some outside reading/listening material regarding the Lord of War. Writer and director Andrew Niccol was interviewed for a brieft segment on NPR's program Day to Day this past week. The interview, while being rather short, is definently worth a listen.

Go to the following link (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4851189).

[Scott Warner]

I saw this on Friday with a couple of my friends form work and all of us found the movie pretty boring. As one of them was saying, it couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to be a documentary or a movie - and large sections of it feel lifted straight out of 'Good Fellas'. It wasn't that the subject material wasn't interesting - the movie just could have used about a thirty minute chop and some better editing in general. Also, without the strong performance by Cage I think this movie would have completely fallen apart.

It's also a bit preachy - given that the audience Nicoli is likely to wrangle in with this movie already knows and agrees with his points he probably could have presented a much better story without the heavy handedness.

[//\/\/]

(heh! a friend of mine worked on this - lucky cow had to spend months in south africa!)

[grady]

- and large sections of it feel lifted straight out of 'Good Fellas'.

I have come across others mentioning this in the press and else where and I didn't feel this at all.

Was it the combination of voice over and fast editing and the bombardment of information that lead you to this association?