Lord of War

REVIEW
Cage gives one of his better recent performances in this flawed but interesting look at an arms merchant, and how both his professional and personal lives are affected by both war and peace over two decades. Leto is his troubled brother, and Hawke is the ATF agent who's perpetually one-step-behind. Lord of War fluctuates between melodrama, sober political critique and satire, never finding a consistent tone, and the film never really takes flight. That said, this is a much more entertaining and less strident film than the trailers suggested; it's never dull, and there are several excellent sequences (including one in which Cage has only a few minutes to make a planeload of weapons disappear; his solution is both funny and chilling).