OK, not the hugest Nick Cage fan but I have to admit when my friend showed me Lord Of War I was impressed. Lord Of War covers the rise of Uri Olov a Soviet Immigrant living in Brooklyn who sees arms dealing as his only way out of a neighbourhood where murder was a daily occurrence. We then follow him and his brother as they start to sell guns and before long Uri is on his own with his brother off his head on cocaine and alcohol. As the film roles on it just gets darker and darker as we see just how callous this man really is as his dry and sardonically funny narration guides us through his rise as one of the biggest arms dealers in the world and even starts dealing guns to General Baptiste Sr (if you dont know your history google this dude, he was a viscous killer). Eventually Uri's journey brings him back to himself as most good self examination films do and maybe most disturbingly of all is how macabre this character really is. Nick Cage is awesome, Nick Cave is a fantastic actor… more »

OK, not the hugest Nick Cage fan but I have to admit when my friend showed me Lord Of War I was impressed. Lord Of War covers the rise of Uri Olov a Soviet Immigrant living in Brooklyn who sees arms dealing as his only way out of a neighbourhood where murder was a daily occurrence. We then follow him and his brother as they start to sell guns and before long Uri is on his own with his brother off his head on cocaine and alcohol. As the film roles on it just gets darker and darker as we see just how callous this man really is as his dry and sardonically funny narration guides us through his rise as one of the biggest arms dealers in the world and even starts dealing guns to General Baptiste Sr (if you dont know your history google this dude, he was a viscous killer). Eventually Uri's journey brings him back to himself as most good self examination films do and maybe most disturbingly of all is how macabre this character really is. Nick Cage is awesome, Nick Cave is a fantastic actor he just happens to pick really awful movies a lot but not here.
The DVD is juiced up with a directors commentary with Andrew Niccol who is very informative about his inspiration for the film and the processes they went through to film it, there's a 1-on-1 interview with Nick Cage as he discusses getting into the right frame of mind. There's a documentary about the real world of gun trading which may scare you when you realise that the facts and sights you see in the movie are totally authentic and real. There's also a making of featurette and a couple of trailers to wind down the special features.
In short you're buying this film for 3 reasons, a brilliant performance by Nicholas Cage, a great performance by Ethan Hawke and because this film is everything films should be, it's a story about a man's journey through life and the things he does to succeed and how far he'll go not to wind up on the wrong end of one of his own pieces of merchandise. As Cage says in the opening monologue there are enough guns so that 1 in every 6 persons in the world can have a gun, the question is how do we supply the other 5?