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This is a curious film. It starts with an overly clever (think rock video) sequence of the life of a bullet from manufacture to being used to kill someone... hey that doesn't sound too bad... shot from the point of view of the bullet.
Then cage starts talking to camera...
ONe of the constant images as he stalks the horror zones of the world is how he always seems to be able to find a clean white shirt and get his suit pressed.
He miraculously rises from selling one gun to trading enough to fight wars and then luckily has an uncle in charge of military stores for... the Ukraine as the USSR crumbles.
Now this film does have its heart in the right place, but its brain is elsewhere. The plot twists are not very twisted, even predictable, and even the bit about where the title comes from is so ridiculous.
You could pretty much cut from the end of the opening where the bullet has hit someone to the words over at the end and be done with it.
The characters are plain unbelievable, Cage and his brother especially.
The president of Liberia, in fact the whole LIberia sequences just seem far too lacking in true evil even as you watch people being killed.
For me, very disappointing.
Follow Ups:
'Nuff said! :o)AuPh
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# The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men # Samuel L. Jackson (Ezekiel 25:17)> Pulp Fiction <Plinius SA-REF----M-8----CD-101-------Martin Logan Ascents
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advertised as high brow or anything.
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How did the other armaments dealer put the connect a bomb to the car's ignition in front of Cage, his uncle and the guards?
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I really don't understand where the "entertainment" lies.
Is it just an unrelated series of images and special effects?
Plot and character are irrelevent.
Is this the dreaded MTV generation effect???
;-)
... entertaining.
As for the moral... is that that its morally OK to sell armamnets because some nations sell more than you do, or that you can be successful enough to bribe everyone and get away with it... oh, that's not really a moral, is it? Although it could be a parable for the American Way!!!
The little speech at the end about how the US president needed him for jobs the US couldn't own up to seemed to come from nowhere and fly in the face of the attempts to charge him.
I think it could seriously have done with a good re-write to smooth out the problems with the plot lines.
It was just too difficult to engange with the film due the cardboard characters and large holes in it.
But that's just how I found it.
How many films have there been from Rambo to The Godfather about Americans who "get away with it"?
Too many in my opinion.
Sorry. Politics, my bad...
Maybe I have missed the entire point of America!!
I am not sure what true evil is. The president of Liberia killing someone, without a second thought, because the person was not paying attention to him seems pretty evil. Ironically, those are some of the same type of events that are, and have been, documented in Iraq under Hussein and his sons.Whether the characters are unbelievable is conjecture. I do not, nor have I known, anyone who runs guns for a living. Until some gun runners come forward to debunk the myths presented in the film, the images presented in the film may very well be more authentic than not.
But whenever you watch a film, particularly one from Hollywood, expecting to see authenticity, expect to be disappointed. Better to watch the film strictly as entertainment. And to that end, it was a decent popcorn film, with some good location shooting.
Actually what I found unbelievable about the Liberian president, was that given his perfect English, it was strange how those phrases (such as lord of war instead of warlord) stuck out.
Its not so much that I am expecting "reality", for which I can just look out at the street, but a kind of hyper-reality, and I don't mean where everything is superglossy like with Sin City, but something beyond reality.
The characters were too simplistic, for example when, towards the end, the brother complains about people about to be killed with their guns... what did he think they were used for?
Too obvious as well... the bullet in the brother, the painting in the container/lock-up, the police guy from Interpol not getting it and rolling over for the US military who of course would not have had jurisdiction.
Yes its a fable, but to my mind not very well told. "I did a lot of cocaine in West Africa"... So what? was my response.
The cheap flash editing of some sequences left it feeling as empty as any promo video for any metal/rap act. Although I did like the time-lapse scene of the plane being stripped down like a shot of a dead animal being eaten by ants.
So I would ask, with all its faults, what is entertaining about it?
For me, not enough.
I felt is was as if too many people tried to have hands on the steering wheel, it was bitty and unrewarding.
"So I would ask, with all its faults, what is entertaining about it?"Well, I think your question assumes that your critisms are faults, which they may or may not be. But I'll try to respond to some of your comments:
(1) "the police guy from Interpol not getting it and rolling over for the US military who of course would not have had jurisdiction." I am not sure at what point in the film you are referring to. My impression is that people like Cage in this line of work probably know more about the law than the police. Add in some smarts, and I believe that intepol probably has a tough job charging people they know are guilty with a crime for lack of evidence, or because the people they are chasing are smart enough to follow the letter of the law. I find it plausible that someone is Cage's position, while technically a lawbreaker, receives protection from the United States or another foreign government because of the service he provides. Akin to informants who break the law but are given free passes because of the information they provide. They provide their service better on the outside than locked up in jail. I suspect that the point the film was making was that the United States Government, with it's military might, can circumvent Interpol, which has limited resources and man power. The message is more important than the example the film may have provided to demonstrate it's point.(2) "the painting in the container/lock-up"
I am not sure how gun runners transport large caches of weapons without getting caught. I assume if there major busts, we would read about it on the news. There do not appear to be major busts, which tells me that the gun runners are more successful than not. How are they successful? I think "how" is less important than the fact they are successful, which I think is the point of the film. The scene in which Interpol boards the ship of a known gun runner, opens a container containing potatoes, and I am thinking that there are guns behind them thar taters. Obvious. Interpol apparently never saw the same films and television shows I've been watching for thirty plus years. So what? The point is that the runner gets the guns through. How? Not important.
(3) "brother complains about people about to be killed with their guns... what did he think they were used for?"
Well, you are right, logically. During the entire film Cage makes a point that he must block these things from his mind. After all, he simply sells guns, he does not pull the trigger. I have heard this argument from gun manufacturers in the United States for years. I have no doubt that the death that is dealt is much more vivid, and eye opening, when seen, as opposed to imagined. For most of the film, they are dealing guns in place A, have no direct knowledge what is taking place, certainly do not see the fruits of their labor, and life is good. Brother then actually witnesses the results of his labor. I suspect that the effect would be similar to seeing a murder on television versus actually witnessing the killing. We have a client who was in a workplace shooting in which four co-workers were killed, had a gun pointed at her, and then the killer was distracted, and so she lived. She cannot leave her basement. I suspect that she saw murders on television and was not affected. I have no problem believing that that the brother's attitude was changed when directly witnessing the carnage from guns he helped supply. The bigger point to the scene which I believe you miss is that Cage's attitude was not changed in seeing the carnage, and his brother killed. That is the bigger question.
What I found entertaining was being taken into a society and places that I have never been and will never go. What I found illuminating was the theory that all these weapons rendered obsolete by the newers bestest model must go somewhere. Where? Particularly when there is money to be made from them, why thrown them into the landfill? Who sells them? Where do they go? Who makes the money? These are questions that the film raises, and frankly, I never really considered. This, I think, was the purpose of the film, and that it forced me to think of these issues makes it something of a success, for me. The film played the right music for me, even if it may have missed some notes.
Especially (3).
Maybe it was the manner the film told the story but I found it less than rivetting.
Which I found odd as I am a sucker for these convoluted kind of things.
We are talking about Hollywood, as James Garvin says, and not Bergman.
In the end, this type of film doesn't get unanimous praise but divided critique.
Borderline films are almost the most fascinating since they polarize....
Is not a film with this kind of budget and with Cage starring something more mainstream than borderline?
Although thinking about how, for example, some of George Clooney's films are considered, then I guess I might be in disagreement with many over these definitions!
I find Cage a bit like Bill Murray... they seem to be so uninvolved in the films that I find them hard, not to like, but to be interested in.
I had thought of making a double bill with L.O.W. and Jarhead but am now glad I didn't.
..the film itself was marginal but simply that the effect produced on people was 'borderline' - the film itself I think is neither Hollywoodian nor a completely marginal film.
Certainly, it flopped in the US because of it's stance so I wouldn't call it 'mainstream', either.
I didn't see Jarhead but maybe they would make a good double bill...
Ok, now I see what you mean.
Do you think it flopped because of its politics?
It might just have been because its not much good!
...& thought it was treated kind of like a fable, rather than a docu-type film or a romantised thing (violence can be romanticised, also, think True Romance etc) - which made the ending all the more hard-hitting...
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