Lord Of War (Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B     Extras: D     Film: C

 

 

Few dramatic films have been effective in covering the secret work of arms sales and smuggling.  Roger Donaldson’s grossly underrated White Sands (1992) had such events worked into its action and mystery very realistically and effectively, but otherwise, it has always been a silly subplot in many a bad actioner or would-be action drama pretending to be about this underworld.  Andrew Niccol’s Lord Of War (2005) tries to take the subject on head-on, but even with Nicolas Cage as the title arms dealer, the film never takes off.

 

One problem is that Niccol (who also wrote the film) thinks he can tell the story by using Martin Scorsese’s visual language (Goodfellas (reviewed elsewhere on this site) in particular) to show the excitement, fanciness and adrenaline-pumping world of this quick money and violent excitement.  Besides misunderstanding Scorsese, the implementation is sloppy and the one element Niccol misses is anything about character or human sexuality that is a vital component of such Scorsese films.  Cage’s Yuri Orlov is married and even has a brother (Jared Leto playing the usually self-destructive character, which has become very boring and tired by now) as he deals with big money and big guns, but he is not as radical as Henry Hill and no matter who goes after him, it never seems to matter.

 

Anything sexual that does surface is on the pedestrian side and another problem that he is serving the power elite all over the place, making him even less likely to get nabbed for some of these sales as if he is helping the “system” more than he thinks.  Sure, there are moments where he (and his brother) becomes moral when they see how these weapons kill, but it is not like they did not know this in advance.  White Sands was much better at dealing with this when it surfaced, passively referencing a parallel situation reminiscent of The Iran-Contra Affair, which in that film becomes a backhanded way for the lead to get cash to make an arms deal to solve a murder.  Ultimately, Lord Of War never gets it together, even with a supporting cast that includes Ian Holm, Bridget Moynahan and Ethan Hawke.  See White Sands instead or compare the two if you must see this one.

 

The 2.35 X 1 1080p digital High Definition image shows more grain and noise than I remember seeing in 35mm prints of this Super 35mm-produced film, with more than a few issues in detail and color consistency.  This is just not that great and I cannot imagine the regular, standard DVD having these issued.  Cinematographer Amir Mokri’s work sometimes surrenders to the gimmicky, including silly sequences of showing the interworkings of the weapons.  The editing is wanna-be Scorsese at its fanciest and that is when the film fails the most.  Lionsgate is including Dolby Digital 5.1 EX and DTS 6.1 ES discrete soundtracks, with the DTS-ES better with its extra track, warmth, fullness and richness edge.  Sony has been using PCM 16bit/48kHz 5.1 sound, but the DTS even has an edge on that, though the sound mix on this film is inconsistent and also gimmicky.  The combination is just plain awkward.  Because this is a single-layer 25GB Blu-ray, extras have no room, so there are none.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo