Gunrunners come in different forms. In westerns, the shifty figure selling weapons to renegade Indians is always a bad guy. On the other hand, the heroic credentials of Casablanca's Rick Blaine are immediately established (or at least they were for liberal Second World War audiences) when it is revealed that he ran guns for victims of fascist aggression in the 1930s.
Shaw's Major Barbara features the locus classicus of the subject in the philosophical discourse of the suave, multi-millionaire, arms-manufacturer Andrew Undershaft who justifies his profession and confuses his critics with paradoxical arguments and cynicism posing as enlightenment. In writer-director Andrew Niccol's Lord of War, the central figure, freelance gunrunner Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), acts like the craven undercover creatures in westerns but talks in the self-justifying manner of Undershaft.
Like Gattaca, which New Zealander Niccol directed, and The Truman Show, which he scripted, Lord of War is a moral fable treated with a surface realism. Yuri Orlov is a Ukrainian-American whose family emigrated to the States under the pretence of being Jewish and now run a kosher cafe in a New York suburb.
One day, he sees two hitmen attempt to kill a mafia boss in a restaurant and has an epiphany. He gets out of the restaurant business and starts trafficking in guns. Within a few years, through Russian contacts, he becomes a major dealer selling arms in Latin America, Asia and Africa, getting rich and marrying his dream girl, from whom he conceals the source of his wealth.
There is, however, always breathing down his neck an Interpol agent (Ethan Hawke). With seemingly limitless powers and resources, this nemesis is out to nail him.
There is a brilliant opening sequence that follows a bullet from a Russian factory through various hands until it blows a hole between the eyes of a black child in Africa. The voice-over commentary is sharp and often very funny. Niccol, who reminds us that the world's chief suppliers of arms are the five permanent members of the Security Council, is deeply serious.
Cage, who is as charming as his pursuer, Hawke, is graceless, gives an excellent performance as the slippery Yuri fighting a winning battle with his conscience. But the film lacks social and political complexity and is frequently unconvincing, especially the aspect involving the unlikely Interpol inspector.