Analyse de Lord Of War

LORD OF WAR

Main cast :

Nicolas Cage – Yuri Orlov

Jared Leto – Vitaly Orlov

Ethan Hawke – Jack Valentine

Bridget Moynahan – Ava Fontaine

Lord of War is directed and produced by Andrew Niccol.

The story takes place in the 80s with an Ukrainian immigrant called Yuri Orlov and living in Manhattan. He decides to change his economical life and becomes an arm dealer with his brother Vitaly Orlov. His business of gunrunner supplying illegal weapons in disturbed areas of the planet increases with the end of the Cold War, and Yuri bribes a Russian general to sell most of his arsenal. At the same time, he becomes a millionaire and uses his money to seduce the beautiful Ava Fontaine and they get married, having a son. Jack Valentine, an interpol agent,  chases Yuri trying to put him in jail, but in the end he understands that Yuri is a necessary evil for the interest of his nation.

The arms trade is broached here with cynicism. Indeed, we are directly thrown into a world full of corruption where the profit comes before the morality. However, this world is ours, which leads us to ask ourselves to the current state of affairs.

The director provides us a rather caricatural image of the African continent but nonetheless real. This continent is controlled by the tyranny of « warlords » as André Baptiste, president of Liberia and main client of Yuri. Several scenes demonstrate it.

For example, when Baptiste killed in cold blood one of his men just trying to seduce a young woman or even when his son opens fire in the street. It’s also a continent where pandemic diseases continue to persist such as AIDS (« not a single condom in a radius of 160 km »).

We are finally reminded that « USA, Russia, UK, France and China are the top arms exporters » but that they are also « the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council ». I think that says it all. This informative side is very well managed with a voice-over always placed at the right time.

The film sequences nicely and good visual ideas are exploited, in particular the opening scene that shows us the journey of a bullet from the factory to the battlefield.

The soundtrack is flawless and I find the actors very well, making the overall film coherent. Finally, I would add that to me it’s the best role of Nicolas Cage.

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