Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Lord of War Blu-ray Movie Review

This early Lionsgate release looks and sounds fine, but is it worth your Blu-ray dollars?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 10, 2008

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 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Lord of War contains no extra materials save for a brief promo piece of other Lionsgate titles on Blu-ray.

Lord of War Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.