On the other hand, audiences might be just willing to learn and to learn to protest if they were shown a feature film with action, drama, comedy and some cynicism and starred Nicolas Cage. And, here it is, Lord of War.

Most reviewers quote the eminently quotable opening. Here it is again. As the camera tracks over thousands of expended bullet cases and focuses on Yuri (Nicolas Cage), he looks into the lens and tells us that in our world one out of every twelve people has a gun. He then poses what he says is the most important question as a consequence of this, ‘how do we arm the other eleven?’ With this dose of cynicism, we are off and running.

This is a cleverly written film, from New Zealander Andrew Niccol who directed Gattaca and has shown that he is a critic of technology run rampant with his script for The Truman Show and his writing and directing of the satire on the visual images where even a computerised image can become an Oscar-winning star and celebrity, Simone.

Cage and Jared Leto portray two Ukrainian migrants in the Coney Island area of Manhattan, the Little Odessa of the Russian Mafia. Yuri tries out a gun deal and it succeeds. Allegedly keeping within the letter of the law, he then travels the world for years (from the 1980s to the present), involved in every civil war and uprising, taking advantage of stocks of disposable weapons, finally arriving in Africa for the uprisings and massacres of the 1990s on. His last job is in Liberia.

Along the way, he keeps involving his brother. He also picks up a trophy bride, a model (Brigid Moynahan) who has no idea of his other life until the relentless agent (Ethan Hawke) turns up.

And she has to face her husband’s lies and make a moral decision.

The film ends, of course, with some alarming statistics. For gun lobbies, this may just seem sensationalising a necessary situation. For those who campaign for peace, Lord of War will be an entertainment that cuts two ways: an enjoyable action drama but a dismaying reminder of the reality of the illegal arms trade and those who benefit by it financially as well as in using the weapons against fellow human beings (so often by ‘liberation’ forces).

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