There wasn’t much to do this weekend but rent a movie or two and listen to it rain.

If you have never seen “The Lord Of War” it is well worth the rental price. I would not have even been disappointed in it had I paid theatre price. I have done much worse.

I guess I would consider myself to be a Nicolas Cage fan. Raising Arizona has to be one of my all time favorites and Cage just has a look and a feel that seems to draw me into whatever movie he is in.

In The Lord Of War Nicolas Cage plays an arms dealer by the name of Yuri Orlov. The character is an amoral capitalist selling arms simply to make money. His position is made plain by his opening statement

There are over 500 million fire arms in worldwide circulation That is one fire arm for every twelve people on the planet The only question is How do we arm the other eleven?

Uri is a freelancer. He is an independent agent. He sells for himself and not solely for the intelligence agencies of other countries. He is able to completely remove himself from the moral aspects of his business. In a conversation with a rival arms dealer he says

“You look a little lost Simeon. Is the world changing too fast? You have gotten so rich selling for the CIA that you can't seem to get that ideology completely out of your head. Now the Cold War had its uses. Got the tensions frozen. Now it is harder to determine which side one is on. Things have become more complicated. No. It has gotten simpler.There is no place in gun running for politics anymore Simeon. I sell to the leftist and the rightist. I sell to the pacifist, but they are not regular customers. Of course, you are not a true internationalist
until you supply weapons to kill your own countrymen.”

And in a conversation with his brother he says

How many car salesman talk about their work.huh? How many cigarette salesman? Both their products kill more people every year than mine. At least, mine has safety switch. Those guys can leave their work at the office. So can I.

Throughout the movie Yuri is chased by the good guy Interpol agent Jack Valentine and in the end, when Yuri is caught, the scene with Valentine is classic theatre.

While watching the movie I learned that the five largest arms dealers in the world are all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. I found that very interesting but probably should have figured it without being told.

It was a damn good movie. No doubt the best $2.50 I spent this weekend.