Written and Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Starring: Nicholas Cage
Rated: R for strong violence, drug use, language and sexuality.
Parental Notes: This is not a film for children. Older teens who can handle the realistic violence and sexuality may find it interesting, and it would certainly serve as a good conversation starter for a discussion about international arms trafficking.
"Lord of War" is a character study which flirts with both satire and horror. It paints a bleak picture of international arms trade, blending actual events with fictional characters to create a deeply disturbing, fascinating morality play. Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Cage) is a dangerous man, an ethical black hole, and an unnervingly sympathetic character. Is it funny? Yes, but often because if you don't treat it as funny it will make you weep in horror that the world not only lets men like this exist but helps them get away with enabling murder.
The film traces Yuri's life from his beginnings as a small-time gun salesman to his establishment as one of the heavy hitters in the world of freelance arms dealing. His parents moved from the Ukraine to Brooklyn, New York, where Yuri and his kid brother Vitaly grew up. Yuri discovers that he is a natural salesman and that the margins in gun running are impressive, and recruits Vitaly to be his partner. After all, he needs someone he can trust to watch his back. They move up quickly, maybe too quickly. Vitaly develops a cocaine habit and goes into rehab, leaving Yuri alone to handle his ex-Russian-army contacts, dangerous warlords, dedicated Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), and perhaps most dangerous of all, the competition, old-school gun runner Simeon Weisz (Ian Holm).
Like some of Niccol's other films, "Gattaca" and "The Truman Show, specifically, "Lord of War" cuts a little too close to reality to be a satire. Although Yuri and his family are fictional, the events in the film are based on reality, and anyone who pays attention to the news out of Africa knows that the misery, poverty, and bestial cruelty the film shows are if anything tamer than they could have been.
Niccol's other films give us optimistic endings, more or less; their protagonists achieve their dreams, beat the system, and escape injustice. The closing shot of "Lord of War" gives us a street filled with shell casings and some text about who the top arms dealers in the world really are. It's bleak, it's frightening, and most of all it's disturbing how easy it is to like Yuri even when he's selling the weapons he knows will be used to kill an encampment of helpless women and children.
Cage plays Yuri with his characteristic empty charm. It's not that Cage is a particularly bad actor, it's that he doesn't have much range. But then, neither does Yuri. The man has a vestigial soul at best, and Cage's smirking lack of depth fits the character perfectly. Yuri is reptilian, and although it seems that the immorality of his profession does get to him from time to time, he fights his moments of humanity down because, as he puts it, a gun runner should never be at war, especially with himself. It's not that he loves selling guns, it's that he's good at it, and he likes what he gets with all that money he earns: a beautiful wife, a gorgeous home, a fleet of his own airplanes, and the rest of it. But most of all, he likes doing something he is good at.
"Lord of War" has its moments of humor, to be sure -- especially in the creative ways Yuri avoids Valentine's efforts to catch him doing something illegal -- but overall it is incredibly dark. It's not a feel-good film. It's a fascinating, frightening look at a man who has almost no morals, and it makes you think about what kind of a world we must live in for there to be so many men like him out there. Yuri himself puts it best: They say that "evil prevails when good men fail to act". It should be "evil prevails."
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Starring: Jason Statham, Amber Valletta, Allesandro Gassman, Kate Nauta.
Rated: PG-13 intense sequences of violent action, sexual content, partial nudity and brief language.
Parental Notes: The violence here is mostly cartoonish, and the partial nudity consists of half a nipple, half a rear end, and a villainess who spends as much time as possible wearing nothing but her underwear. It walks a fine line as far as suitability for preteens, but teenagers should be fine.
The mix of elements that make up a good summer action flick is fairly straightforward: you need lots of action, not too much hokey romance/relationship stuff, a solid villain, and a hero you can really root for. Witty secondary characters, beautiful women, cool technology, and interesting locations are useful but not required. “The Transporter” had all of these in reasonable amounts. Frank Martin (Jason Statham) was a great hero, the villains weren’t too annoying, and the fight scenes were just great enough to make the suspension of disbelief they required possible. Sadly, its new sequel, “The Transporter 2,” gets too many of the elements wrong to be a great film. It’s passable, and if you enjoy Frank as a character it’s worth seeing, but be ready to roll your eyes a lot.
The film starts off with a bang when some young toughs make the mistake of trying to carjack Frank’s Audi. Frank, a former Special Forces man and mercenary driver-for-hire, takes them down in style but is still almost late to his appointment -- he has taken over chauffeuring duties for a friend for a month, driving a government official’s son to school and back every day. The kid, Jack (Hunter Clary) is crazy about him, and so is the official’s estranged wife, Audrey (Amber Valletta), but Frank doesn’t take advantage of either of them. He’s the criminal-with-a-heart-of-gold type, a good an honorable man who happens to make his living on the shady side of things.
So far so good. But things take a turn for the worse when the villains of the film show up to kidnap Jack as part of a plot to unleash a deadly virus. Bad guys in big action movies have to walk a fine line -- too much scenery chewing and they’re cheesy, not enough of it and they’re boring. Unfortunately, mercenaries Gianni (Allesandro Gassman) and Lola (Kate Nauta) fail utterly at walking that fine line. Gianni is the classic vain bad guy, spouting painfully stupid dialog at all opportunities (“Breathe, my friend! Breeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaathe!”).
Lola, meanwhile, is a standard psychotic, nymphomaniac villainess -- waving her guns around as often as she flaunts her androgynous, rail-thin physique in absurd clothing (who goes to a gunfight in three-inch heels?). Her dialog is almost as dreadful as Gianni’s. It may seem unfair to complain about cheesy dialog in a film which is clearly not meant to be taken seriously, but when every single line the two villains utter is incredibly lame, it’s hard to ignore it. Most dumb action movies have at least a little decent dialog for the bad guys, but not “The Transporter 2.”
There’s plenty of action -- we've got gunfights, hand-to-hand combat, car chases, a plane crash, the works. For the most part, the fights are as creative as those in the first film (which featured impressive use of bike pedals, among other things), although they are frequently even more over-the-top. The automotive acrobatics are completely ludicrous -- at one point Frank uses a crane to scrape a bomb off the bottom of his car in mid-air -- but they are jaw-droppingly cool.
Sadly, the ratio of fight scenes to non-fight scenes isn’t quite right. There’s too much badly-written romance material, with both Audry and Lola trying to seduce Frank, and too many scenes of the villains chewing the scenery to tiny bits. There’s a witty secondary character in the form of Inspector Tarconi, a carryover from the first film, but his charm isn’t enough to outweigh the lameness.
It’s a pity that “The Transporter 2” fails to walk that fine line between gloriously over-the-top and utterly stupid. It has moments of brilliance but one must endure so many lame scenes that it’s hard to truly appreciate the good bits. Fans of Frank Martin will probably want to catch this, as will those desperate for a new action flick, but everyone else is well advised to steer clear.