I remember being interested in seeing this movie when it came out last year, but it disappeared from the theatre so fast, I never really had the chance. Now that I've seen it on DVD, I think I can understand why.
Not that it's bad, per se. A team of fine actors, written and directed by the guy that made Gattaca (high on my list of all-time great under-appreciated SF films), the movie is certainly well-crafted. But once you look past that…
Part of it is simply the subject matter. Despite the critical acclaim and decent box office for films like Good Night and Good Luck or Munich, not everyone is going to rush out to see an obviously politically charged movie like this one. It's not helped by the fact that your protagonist is an international gun-runner who defends his business with the arguably solipsistic "I'm only providing a service, I can't control what people do with my product" defense.
Another problem is in the presentation—in that it's too presentational. The movie is constantly narrated by Nicolas Cage's character Uri, which provides us with lots of necessary background, both in terms of what's going on in Uri's world, and what's going on in Uri's mind. But the preponderance of voiceover is, frankly, off-putting and just serves to distance you from the film. (Perhaps it's a good thing, as the subject matter and events get unpalatable pretty fast.)
But ultimately, for me, the real downfall of the film is simply that it's a message movie… and one that feels the need to bludgeon you with that message by the end of the movie.
You can tell from the opening of the film what you're in for, as the movie tracks the path of a single bullet from the factory where it's made, to its ultimate destination in the head of a young child wielding an AK-47. Yep, it's subtle all right. It doesn't dwell too much on this throughout the rest of the movie, content, it would seem, to rest on its laurels and simply prep you for the climax of the movie.
(And yes, if you DO care to see this movie and don't want the ending spoiled, this is when you should click away fast!)
Predictably, the end of the movie sees Uri's world fall apart. His brother, Vitaly, who's finally gotten his act together and looks to be on the path to a good life, gets talked into helping Uri with "one last job," after which he'll be able to quit and open up that restaurant he's always dreamed of opening. (If you couldn't figure out a the beginning of the movie that Vitaly was doomed, this is your big red warning sign that he's about to die.) See, Vitaly's not so comfortable with Uri's "it's not my fault" defense, and he does things that one generally shouldn't when running guns to militant "freedom fighters" and gets himself shot up for his conscience. Uri, so incredibly careful about every other part of his gun-running life, cuts corners getting his brother's body prepped to return to the US and gets locked up for falsifying a death certificate.
MEANWHILE, the Interpol agent (Jack Valentine) that's been trying to catch him for years has gotten his big break by tailing Uri's wife, who's been suspicious of Uri ever since the Interpol agent told her what Uri really does for a living. She follows Uri as he gets ready to leave town for his last big job and learns where he keeps his "office." Uri, who can always tell when he's being followed doesn't' suspect a thing, 'cause his wife just doesn't set off those alarms for him. So the Interpol gang find Uri's office and get all the evidence they'll ever need to lock him away for a very long time. (We don't actually know this at the time… it's explained to us later so that we apparently understand that his wife is a good wife who wouldn't rat on her husband and the only reason Interpol found out is they're smart and know how to manipulate people. At least, "average" honest people who don't make a living running guns, I suppose.)
As you can probably tell, the wheels are coming off this train, as we're put through all these hoops to get to Uri, sitting in jail, facing his determined nemesis (whom we've seen for a grand total of 10 minutes of screen time, max, up to this point). After Valentine goes through how they caught him and what they're going to do to him, Uri acknowledges just how fucked up his life is now; but disagrees with him as to what's going to happen next. He's not going to spend even one night in jail, he says, because he serves a purpose in this world, one that the US government can't afford to lose. You see, he says, the US Government is the biggest arms dealer in the world, but there are certain people and regimes that our government can't be seen to be supporting. Which is where Uri and his ilk come in, since they have no loyalties and are equal opportunity providers. They can sell those guns to the freedom fighters we support, so they can kill the freedom fighters we don't support.
He details how he's going to be released and what Valentine's going to do, etc. We see brief flashes of what he's talking about and then, when he's done describing it, we hear the knock on the door that he 'predicted' at the beginning of his story, and the next thing we see is him climbing into his limo after being handed a big wad of cash from someone in a US Army General's uniform. We're then treated to a brief coda where he wraps up the movie and talks about the dangers of peace and getting shot by his own guns, or some such stuff (to be honest, I've forgotten it all by now).
And then, just before the credits roll, we get a couple of screens of "wrap-up" text, letting us know what kind of money is spent each year in illegal arms trafficking and enlightening us to the fact that the top 5 arms dealers in the world (US, Russia, France, China and the UK) are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. As if we didn't hear most of this just moments ago in Uri's long explanation of why he won't go to jail.
And there's the most frustrating thing. Uri's long speech was completely unnecessary. RATHER than continue the drawn-out presentational structure we've been saddled with for so long, it could have been much more interesting to just SHOW what happens. Have Jack Valentine tell Uri how much trouble he's in, have Uri acknowledge it, have the knock on the door and subsequent shots of Jack arguing with the general (hopefully with no audible dialogue), then cut to Uri getting into the car with his wad of cash and finish the movie as before. THEN, when you run those screens at the end of the movie, there's a POINT to running them, and the audience finally understands exactly what happened and why.
This, of course, would mean you'd have to trust your audience, something Hollywood is loathe to do, even, apparently, in a movie that pretty much demands a certain intelligence and thoughtfulness to watch. And who knows, maybe most people wouldn't get it. But it would have been a hell of a lot more interesting if they didn't feel the need to beat us over the head with the pointy end of their movie.
Not that it's bad, per se. A team of fine actors, written and directed by the guy that made Gattaca (high on my list of all-time great under-appreciated SF films), the movie is certainly well-crafted. But once you look past that…
Part of it is simply the subject matter. Despite the critical acclaim and decent box office for films like Good Night and Good Luck or Munich, not everyone is going to rush out to see an obviously politically charged movie like this one. It's not helped by the fact that your protagonist is an international gun-runner who defends his business with the arguably solipsistic "I'm only providing a service, I can't control what people do with my product" defense.
Another problem is in the presentation—in that it's too presentational. The movie is constantly narrated by Nicolas Cage's character Uri, which provides us with lots of necessary background, both in terms of what's going on in Uri's world, and what's going on in Uri's mind. But the preponderance of voiceover is, frankly, off-putting and just serves to distance you from the film. (Perhaps it's a good thing, as the subject matter and events get unpalatable pretty fast.)
But ultimately, for me, the real downfall of the film is simply that it's a message movie… and one that feels the need to bludgeon you with that message by the end of the movie.
You can tell from the opening of the film what you're in for, as the movie tracks the path of a single bullet from the factory where it's made, to its ultimate destination in the head of a young child wielding an AK-47. Yep, it's subtle all right. It doesn't dwell too much on this throughout the rest of the movie, content, it would seem, to rest on its laurels and simply prep you for the climax of the movie.
(And yes, if you DO care to see this movie and don't want the ending spoiled, this is when you should click away fast!)
Predictably, the end of the movie sees Uri's world fall apart. His brother, Vitaly, who's finally gotten his act together and looks to be on the path to a good life, gets talked into helping Uri with "one last job," after which he'll be able to quit and open up that restaurant he's always dreamed of opening. (If you couldn't figure out a the beginning of the movie that Vitaly was doomed, this is your big red warning sign that he's about to die.) See, Vitaly's not so comfortable with Uri's "it's not my fault" defense, and he does things that one generally shouldn't when running guns to militant "freedom fighters" and gets himself shot up for his conscience. Uri, so incredibly careful about every other part of his gun-running life, cuts corners getting his brother's body prepped to return to the US and gets locked up for falsifying a death certificate.
MEANWHILE, the Interpol agent (Jack Valentine) that's been trying to catch him for years has gotten his big break by tailing Uri's wife, who's been suspicious of Uri ever since the Interpol agent told her what Uri really does for a living. She follows Uri as he gets ready to leave town for his last big job and learns where he keeps his "office." Uri, who can always tell when he's being followed doesn't' suspect a thing, 'cause his wife just doesn't set off those alarms for him. So the Interpol gang find Uri's office and get all the evidence they'll ever need to lock him away for a very long time. (We don't actually know this at the time… it's explained to us later so that we apparently understand that his wife is a good wife who wouldn't rat on her husband and the only reason Interpol found out is they're smart and know how to manipulate people. At least, "average" honest people who don't make a living running guns, I suppose.)
As you can probably tell, the wheels are coming off this train, as we're put through all these hoops to get to Uri, sitting in jail, facing his determined nemesis (whom we've seen for a grand total of 10 minutes of screen time, max, up to this point). After Valentine goes through how they caught him and what they're going to do to him, Uri acknowledges just how fucked up his life is now; but disagrees with him as to what's going to happen next. He's not going to spend even one night in jail, he says, because he serves a purpose in this world, one that the US government can't afford to lose. You see, he says, the US Government is the biggest arms dealer in the world, but there are certain people and regimes that our government can't be seen to be supporting. Which is where Uri and his ilk come in, since they have no loyalties and are equal opportunity providers. They can sell those guns to the freedom fighters we support, so they can kill the freedom fighters we don't support.
He details how he's going to be released and what Valentine's going to do, etc. We see brief flashes of what he's talking about and then, when he's done describing it, we hear the knock on the door that he 'predicted' at the beginning of his story, and the next thing we see is him climbing into his limo after being handed a big wad of cash from someone in a US Army General's uniform. We're then treated to a brief coda where he wraps up the movie and talks about the dangers of peace and getting shot by his own guns, or some such stuff (to be honest, I've forgotten it all by now).
And then, just before the credits roll, we get a couple of screens of "wrap-up" text, letting us know what kind of money is spent each year in illegal arms trafficking and enlightening us to the fact that the top 5 arms dealers in the world (US, Russia, France, China and the UK) are also the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. As if we didn't hear most of this just moments ago in Uri's long explanation of why he won't go to jail.
And there's the most frustrating thing. Uri's long speech was completely unnecessary. RATHER than continue the drawn-out presentational structure we've been saddled with for so long, it could have been much more interesting to just SHOW what happens. Have Jack Valentine tell Uri how much trouble he's in, have Uri acknowledge it, have the knock on the door and subsequent shots of Jack arguing with the general (hopefully with no audible dialogue), then cut to Uri getting into the car with his wad of cash and finish the movie as before. THEN, when you run those screens at the end of the movie, there's a POINT to running them, and the audience finally understands exactly what happened and why.
This, of course, would mean you'd have to trust your audience, something Hollywood is loathe to do, even, apparently, in a movie that pretty much demands a certain intelligence and thoughtfulness to watch. And who knows, maybe most people wouldn't get it. But it would have been a hell of a lot more interesting if they didn't feel the need to beat us over the head with the pointy end of their movie.
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