Lord Of War

When Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) stumbles across a shoot-out between Russian mobsters in New York, he decides to jack in his parents' grotty restaurant for a life of guns, girls and greedy dictators. Before long, the Ukrainian immigrant's son is the richest and most ruthless arms dealer on the planet.

"I sold guns to every army but the Salvation Army," he drawls, crunching over a gleaming carpet of empty bullet cartridges.

But it's not all plain sailing. Interpol agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke) is onto Yuri and younger brother Vitaly's (Jared Leto) dodgy dealings. Cue a breathless game of international cat-and-mouse, with Valentine refusing to bend the law and Orlov pulling every fast trick in the book.

Orlov's big break arrives when the Soviet Union collapses in 1991. Spuriously, given his family's relative poverty in the US, Uncle Dmitri (Eugene Lazarev) is a five-star general in the Ukraine. Yuri jets in and immediately siphons off huge stockpiles of weapons to corrupt African warlords.

Business is booming, but life gets less rosy on the home front, especially when Ava (Bridget Moynahan) starts to question how her husband is paying for their champagne lifestyle. With a suspicious wife, an increasingly unhinged brother and Valentine edging ever closer to nailing his man, it's only a matter of time before Orlov's luck runs out. Or is it?

Andrew Niccol's bold, expansive movie scores several hits: lush cinematography, stunning action sequences and a truly gutsy ending. Cage not attempting a Ukrainian accent is an added bonus.

Indeed, it is he who makes and breaks the movie. Yuri is the only character allowed the space to develop, but he never truly gets into gear. This is default Cage: that trademark sneer, a perfect balance between cool and cruel. The problem is that he fails to make Orlov anything other than a career low-life. Niccol wants to show us what happens when a bad guy finally finds his conscience, but Cage only delivers half the goods. It doesn't help that his treacle-thick monotone has the emotional range of a perennial stoner.

Fortunately, the director doesn't pull his punches. Even if the plotlines occasionally trip over one another, this looks every inch the polished Hollywood blockbuster. With Cage at the helm, Lord Of War falls disappointingly short on humanity, but, in a sense, that's the whole point of the movie.