Lord of War Blu-ray offers solid video and audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
Chance leads Yuri Orlov to discover his one talent - illegal arms dealing. With his brother's
help, he reaches the top of the trade, supplying anyone whose check clears. His skills and quick
wits bring him everything he's ever wanted - and help him elude a persistent Interpol agent.
But at the peak of his prowess, he discovers his customers might demand more than he can
give...and those he's trying to protect could become deadly liabilities.
I was an equal opportunity merchant of death. I supplied every army but the Salvation
Army.
Remember the cocaine factory scene in RoboCop where
everyone has the barrel of a gun in their face and Clarence Boddicker (played by
Kurtwood
Smith) says "guns guns guns!"? That quote is Lord of War in a nutshell. This is a movie
all
about guns. It's about illegal sales involving quantities of military-style firearms on the black
market, the peaks and valleys of
those who deal in them, and the power of guns,
including the deadly force they employ and the sense of empowerment they give to those who
wield
them. It's a story of survival, not from the barrel of a gun, necessarily, but of surviving one of
the deadliest games in the world, where your best customers are the most unscrupulous scum
bags on the planet with more blood on their hands than many a headline-making dictators while
the most ardent of crime fighters hunts you down day and night, and where cunning and, in
some
cases, the law are the only defenses you have.
Although working against the best interests of MI5, Nicolas Cage still appreciates a Martini that is shaken, not stirred.
Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashankov has become the Russian people's greatest
export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing's for sure, no one was
lining up to buy their cars.
In one of the better performances of his career, Nicolas Cage (National Treasure)
portrays Yuri, a man who builds an empire of
illegal arms dealings from humble beginnings, selling a couple of punks two Uzis in a cheap hotel
room. He and his drug addicted brother Vitaly (Jared Leto, Urban Legend) sell to
anyone and everyone (except for Usama Bin Laden, not on any moral ground, but because he
has a habit of writing checks that bounce), from the post-Soviet Russians to the African dictator
Andre Baptiste (a brilliant Eamonn Walker, TV's "Oz"), and even covertly to the U.S. military.
Yuri's 20-year journey will see him rise and fall in power and prominence, gain new allies, find
himself in competition with fellow arms dealer Simeon Weisz (Ian Holm, From Hell), marry
the girl of his dreams, Ava (Bridget Moynahan, I, Robot), and deal
with a determined and incorruptible INTERPOL agent, Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke, Training Day).
Evil prevails.
The most fascinating segment of the film, and one of the most original I have seen, is to be found
at the open of the film. We become witnesses to the birth, life, and death of a single
7.62x39mm bullet (those used in your everyday AK-47 rifles). We witness its production in a
factory, its shipment to a war-torn African battleground, its loading into a magazine, and its final
destination, the forehead of a child soldier. The bullet's journey, from the factory to the target,
looks rather gimmicky on the surface, but the segment's power is undeniable when taken in
context of the story that presents itself over the next two hours. Not only does the opening
scenes show us what Yuri deals in, how his weapons work, and what they are capable of, but it is
a representative of the various themes found in the movie, too. What we see in the opening
minutes tells the story of the movie in a condensed, metaphorical sense.
Lord of War is also a smartly written drama that is well-directed (by Andrew Niccol, Gattaca) and
performed
to a high level of professionalism by all the actors involved. I was most impressed with Eamonn
Walker's
performance as the African warlord (or "Lord of War" as he is known) Andre Baptiste. His
character is oddly
likable thanks to the bigger-than-life smile he wears, but that is just a veneer for the cruel person
he is underneath and the massive bloodshed brought about by his ongoing war efforts. His is a
character hard to define. At the end of the day, we'd feel no remorse were he put down by a
shot to the head (as he so easily guns down a character late in the film), but the way Walker
portrays the character we cannot help but enjoy his presence in the movie and his scenes prove
to be the best in the film. Nicolas Cage is, well, Nicolas Cage. He brings the same attitude and
vocal inflections we've seen and heard in countless other film's he's starred in, but as always, he
manages to meld his personality just so to capture the essence of the character he portrays.
Lord of War sells itself on Blu-ray with a nice looking 1080p, 2.40:1-framed transfer
encoded in MPEG-2. While a very early Blu-ray release, this one still holds up well today, despite
some whacky contrast. Parts of the image exhibit an unnatural red push, notably during the first
act of the film, while other segments
look more natural. There is a processed look to much of the image, too, with some overly sharp
edges on some objects. To the contrary, some of the transfer has a soft edge to it. It's really a
mixed bag, but on the whole it's acceptable. It sports solid black levels, too, and a minimal grain
field that is more noticeable during some less-than-ideally lit interior shots of warehouses, factories,
and storage facilities housing plenty of armaments. Detail is solid. Close-ups of various weapons
allow us to read the manufacturer stamp on some of the rifles (a Colt M-16, for example) and see
the wear and tear of an AK-47's magazine and receiver. Facial
detail, clothing detail and textures, and the like hold up rather well. Lord of War is a nice
looking catalogue title, all things considered.
Lord of War locks and loads and fires its soundtrack at viewers with two lossy options: a
DTS-ES 6.1 track and a Dolby Digital 5.1 EX track. For the purpose of the review, I watched the
film with the higher bit rate DTS track. The disc wastes no time creating an atmosphere with
low-level gunfire and ambience in the way of chirping insects and the bustling of the inside of a
munitions factory, all in the opening seconds of the movie. Likewise, we'll hear the sounds of war
in
the background in several places throughout the movie, and the nice, natural atmospherics
remain,
too, whether in an outdoor locale with a light breeze or in an upscale restaurant with light music
playing across the front and customers chatting in the background. Surrounds come alive with
vigor and vitality during a crucial and entertaining scene featuring a cargo plane full of weapons
and an INTERPOL jet fighter. The various popular music
tracks sound fine, and gunshots thump nicely, but both have a definite lack of ultimate oomph
and
clarity. They still offer listeners a nice, manageable presence, but the lack of a lossless or
uncompressed
track definitely restricts the track slightly. Sounds pan naturally across the soundstage.
Your subwoofer will have an opportunity to demonstrate its power a few times over the track, an
example being a car explosion in chapter six and another in chapter 12.
Dialogue is incredibly strong and natural, coming off as clear as a whistle and at just the right
volume. Lord of War could use a lossless track, but like the video, it holds up rather well
considering its status as one of the earliest Blu-ray releases.
Lord of War is a fascinating, original movie that is well-acted and directed. It's a poignant
film to be sure, but is also a fine movie in the tradition of Scarface and other films depicting
the rags-to-riches story of those who come to power and wealth through illegal activities. Eamonn
Walker steals the show with his wonderful performance, with Cage and Leto's performances almost
equally compelling. Lord of War is certainly not a film for the masses. It's unforgiving in its
depiction of violence and features several bloody scenes, but it offers a powerful story that is far
greater than that of more conventional Action or Drama films. Lionsgate's Blu-ray presentation of
Lord of War is decent, but like so many of that studio's early releases, this title is ripe for a
"double dip" down the road. Featuring a decent MPEG-2 high definition video presentation, a lossy
soundtrack, and no supplemental materials (one of the DVD editions was a two-disc set),
this disc is only for those who want the best A/V presentation of the film to date and don't mind the
absence of supplements.
