Written and Directed by Andrew Niccol

Nicolas Cage,  Jared Leto, Ethan Hawke, Bridget Moynahan, Ian Holm, Eamonn Walker, Sammi Rotibi, Eugene Lazarev.

In the early 80s, to mid 90s Ukrainian immigrant Yuri Orlov (Cage) witnesses an assassination in his new home of Brooklyn, New York. This gives him the inspiration to start selling guns to those who need them, and becoming an arms dealer. Over time he starts to sell to big players; including the President of Liberia, and becoming a major rival to another arms dealer, all the while he is keeping his life a secret from his wife Ava (Moynahan), and his brother Vitaly (both in and out of the business and rehab.

Starting with one of the best opening credit sequences I’ve reviewed so far – which shows the entire life of a bullet, from being made at a factory to it entering the forehead of a victim, there are some great directing moments within the film. Two examples are the ‘change of boat name scene’ and the ‘stripping of the plane scene’

The cast are all fine, with Cage as always delivering a confident performance. He has one of the greatest screen personas and is able to hold his own in almost every role he does. Leto plays his younger brother who suffers from drug addiction, and this felt like a bit of a usual role that Leto was doing in this decade of his career. Holm, plays the apathetic rival arms dealer who seems almost bored of Yuri in the scenes he is in. Hawke, is the overzealous agent trying to bring Yuri down.

The screenplay is sound, and actually warrants the constant narration from Cage. There are some moments within the film that secondary or tertiary characters are speaking foreign languages without subtitles, and then English speaking characters will let the audience know what they said in English – this is a little silly, and could have been improved with just subtitles put on the screen.

The film travels worldwide as Uri does his business in countries within the Middle East, America and others. While there isn’t much ‘scenery’, it is refreshing that some of the settings were filmed on location.

The soundtrack is fun, and has multiple tracks that were big at the time the film is set.

A solid dark comedy/action, which is only strengthened by the performance and screen presence of Cage.

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