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by Willie Waffle

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Lord of War

It was the summer of Terrence Howard and the Penguins, but it might be the fall of Nicolas Cage. Between this week's Lord of War and The Weather Man (coming out October 28), it will be well worth his time to get fitted for a new tux and reserve a limo for Oscar night. Also, he should make sure his wife has her identification up to date because she's kind of young and there will be a lot of drinking. Nothing puts a damper on Oscar night like getting carded and booted from the Vanity Fair party.

Cage stars as Yuri Orlov - an immigrant growing up in New York's little Odessa, where fellow Ukrainians have settled, but he's not content with life in the restaurant business his parents have established. Over the years, he has seen the tough mobsters with very opulent, but dangerous, lives who come in and out, and thinks he has what it takes to survive and thrive in the underworld. In a way, he has a feeling it's his best chance at attaining riches, or at least it's more profitable than serving goulash, so Yuri decides to become an arms dealer, and the audience gets to watch his life play out over the course of twenty years, including his pursuit by Interpol agent, Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke), who will not rest until Yuri is put in jail.

Who will get Yuri first, his conscience or Jack?

Lord of War reminds me a great deal of Goodfellas as we watch a character growing up among criminals, admiring their lives, starting out at the bottom as a working class hood and rising up through the ranks, while the authorities always are breathing down his neck. Just like Goodfellas, Lord of War is an extremely compelling tale with fantastic acting performances, great dialogue and dark humor that still makes you laugh in the middle of gripping drama. Lucky for us, all of that gripping drama revolves around Nicolas Cage and his character, Yuri.

Cage makes Yuri into one of the most complicated and intellectually fascinating characters of 2005 by giving the gun runner his attitude, dark sense of humor, guilt, love for his family, euphoria for completing the deal, fear of who he does business with and the tension he feels while eluding the law. At every turn, and in the face of every challenging scene, Cage makes Yuri everything but boring.

The actor shows us how Yuri grows in confidence as the character ages from naïve young man to grizzled veteran, but always knows when to take down Yuri's defenses and let us see the real man behind the blustery, know-it-all wheeler-dealer. More than anything, Cage shows us how Yuri's stated feelings that he will sell to anyone on any side of a fight without a pang of conscience is just a set of empty words from a man who is struggling everyday with his guilt. He makes writer/director Andrew Niccol's monologues jump off the screen and into our ears with their basic, but compelling, raw words and burns an image into our brains to remember long after you have left the Cineplex.

Cage, along with a superb supporting cast, takes Niccol's wonderful framework, situations and script and elevates them to the highest levels. Niccol writes amazing dialogue between Yuri and Jack Valentine that crackles with the contempt Valentine feels for Yuri, and the grudging respect and touch of sadness Yuri feels for Valentine as each showdown leads to its ultimate conclusion (Hawke and Cage have the chemistry to make it this good). Niccol's script is full of these odd relationships as we watch Yuri interacting with his younger brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto); his wife, Ava (Bridget Moynihan); and his best client, Andre Baptiste (Eamonn Walker).

Niccol brilliantly makes each relationship as complicated as the characters involved in it. Baptiste and Yuri are wary friends, more like friends of convenience, who don't truly trust each other, but they're stuck with one another. It's a strange mixture of admiration and disapproval, especially as Walker amazingly is able to flip Baptiste's attitude from charming to menacing in a blink of an eye.

Yuri and Ava share a similar relationship of convenience where both have been willing to turn a blind eye towards the illegal business, which leads them to sacrifice some dignity and ethics in order to lead the lives they always dreamed of, and we get to watch Moynahan fill Ava with a sadness and shame only masked over by a thin layer of a smile. Yet, because of these choices, the two are perfect for each other and understand each other in ways the rest of the audience can't, which makes the last half hour of the movie so heartbreaking for Ava.

Finally, we see how Yuri shares a very damaging and serviceable relationship with his troubled brother, yet, Yuri finds moments to show his love for the younger man when he is no longer of service to him, which gives Leto a chance to evoke the audience's sympathy as he struggles with his problems and searches for happiness.

Lord of War is fantastic from start to finish.

4 Waffles (Out Of 4)

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