The arms-dealing drama Lord of War could have been fired from a shotgun – it sprays all over the place. Part action movie and part message piece, the picture is only one thing for sure: a major misstep for gifted writer/director Andrew Niccol (Gattaca). In following the unlikely career of Ukrainian-American antihero Yuri Orlov (a smarmier-than-usual Nicolas Cage), Niccol repeatedly hammers home what a nasty, immoral business gunrunning is. Lord of War needs to be more medium and less message, for outrage alone isn’t art.
