Second Emulation

Moral Dilemmas and Familial Bonds in Nicolas Cage's Lord of War

• Shawn Juarez • Episode 71

Share episode

Send us a text

What if the pursuit of the American dream led you down a morally ambiguous path? Join us as we dissect Nicolas Cage's riveting performance in "Lord of War," where he embodies the enigmatic Yuri, an arms dealer grappling with the complexities of ethics, family, and ambition. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the Cold War's end, this episode examines how Cage's portrayal oscillates between captivating and confounding, challenging our perceptions of morality and accountability. From the politically charged themes of arms dealing to the personal conflicts of a wartime refugee, we explore how the narrative remains strikingly relevant to contemporary global issues.

The relationship between Yuri and his brother, played by Jared Leto, takes center stage as we unpack the contrasting dynamics between their characters. Yuri's nonchalant approach to danger is starkly opposed by his brother's moral turmoil, leading to a crucial moment of sacrifice during a fateful weapons exchange. This poignant scene reflects on the cyclical nature of violence and the haunting legacy of their shared past, offering a deep dive into the complexities of familial bonds entwined with crime. Through this lens, we analyze the profound cost of their choices and the inexorable pull of their history.

As we navigate the moral landscape of "Lord of War," Cage's steadfast portrayal serves as a mirror to pressing issues like gun control and ethical responsibility. Despite personal losses, Yuri's unyielding nature prompts us to question the broader implications of providing tools of violence. The hosts engage in a spirited critique of Cage's performance, highlighting his unique acting style that often blurs the line between character and self. Additionally, we stir excitement over the prospect of a sequel, exploring how the narrative might evolve with Cage's character and his son at the helm. Tune in for a thought-provoking exploration of a film that continues to resonate with current societal debates.

Hey there, podcast pals! Need a morning boost? Look no further than Dunkin' Donuts! Our freshly brewed coffee and irresistible donuts are the perfect way to kick-start your day. From classic favorites to new flavors, there's something for everyone. Join DD Perks for exclusive rewards with every purchase. Swing by your nearest Dunkin' today and treat yourself to something special. Dunkin' Delights – making mornings brighter, one sip at a time! 

 Hey, everyone! Like, super exciting news! Fan mail has been added to our podcast! We totally love hearing from you, so if you have any questions, comments, or just wanna say hi, click the link above the description. We might even feature you in an upcoming episode! So, don't be shy—click that link and share your thoughts. Okay, now back to the show

Want more of Second Emulation? Stay connected with us by following our social media channels! By clicking the link below to stay up to date with us on our socials and Game review streaming channel.

https://solo.to/secondemulation






  📍 Hi, hello, and welcome to Second Emulation! Oh my God, you guys, im so excited for you to listen to this episode—like, its going to be so good! Your amazing host is about to take you on a deep dive into all things movies, anime, gaming, and pop culture. Seriously, its like, the best way to spend your time. So, grab your favorite drink, maybe a latte or something cute, and get ready to have the best time. Okay, love that for you! heres your host!"



I'd like to welcome you all back to another episode of Nick Cage.  I'm not sure we call this 

Nick Cage across the multiverse. 

 We just continue to watch Nick Cage movies,  not caring how great they are or how bad, and sometimes we're surprised when we do encounter a Nick Cage movie that we haven't seen before.

And the acting just turns out really bad. You can tell.  What I love in Nick Cage movies is that he is really trying to sell the film. 

 He's, one thing you can't question is   His commitment to the role in any of the films that he's been in. 

Correct. 

 But  I don't want to say we're surprised by how bad they are.

I think some, we're surprised either way. Sometimes we're, I think it's, I'm going in thinking it's going to be bad and it's good. And sometimes I go in thinking it's going to be good and it's bad.   He likes to mystify. He challenges your notions. 

He challenges himself, and so this movie in particular is  gonna be on one of a serious note of Nick Cage.

Which is the film called Lord of War  now This movie based on some true events. It's based on 

like a real person, right? 

Hey, I believe it's based on a real person  And loosely because when a movie says based on real events  It could be like one part is real and the rest of it is just all fabricated just so it could fit the narrative.   

 This one's gonna be a little bit on the serious tone because it does  

Which   he does serious but  those serious roles, it's almost too funny so you can't take him seriously. In this case, he is actually very serious. Yeah, he's very 

serious because the premise of the film is that he  is a gun runner.

An arms dealer. Yeah.  

Gun runner, arms dealer  someone who just, who sells weapons for profit. Doesn't put, isn't very political. Just whoever pays more gets the guns. 

Yeah. 

And he can  he sells to the opposing and the winning side. So to him, it's all about money. And.  This was in a time, I think,  where, I'm not sure what the year was.

The movie came out in 2005  he talks about the quote unquote end of the Russian Ukraine war, which is actually, or no, the Soviet   the Cold War, whatever, right?  Which is interesting because technically, the Russian Ukraine  have since entered another war,   but I, so I don't know exactly when it is  but  I would say it's probably still early 2000s. 

Correct.   Actually, we'll have to, I'll 

look it up right now. 

It'll be  fact checked at some point, but the premise of it is during that period of time where there's an abundance of weapons and ammunition and military supplies and who's going to Get it. It 

says 1989. 

Okay, so I was  not  You were born, 

but hold on is this 

oh  Yeah, so anyway, I The movie supposed to take place in the 1980s 1990s I think they say it too because I was gonna say you never see him with cell phone. So it makes sense That it would be 1989  so that yeah when it ended when the Cold War ended is part of when it's taking place So this is before 9 11 and But it I think it was still a Bush administration.

It was just his dad. 

Yeah,   yeah, his dad. So  Myself or my sister did not exist or if we did we had we weren't conscious of the world around during this  period. I guess you can call this kind of like a period piece  because   it's a selected period in time.  So but yes, this was a serious stone because of this and it's   I guess I'm going to like  what we thought were great and what we thought were weak areas, but I feel like this movie does have some political undertones that are still present in today's. 

Yeah, I would say, so the movie is about, what is his name, Yuri? He's in their, their   are they Ukrainian? 

Cause they say 

Borscht, so I think they might be Ukrainian. 

 They escaped.  

I shouldn't   they came to the US pretending to be Jewish during, or their parents did during   to escape    the war that was happening there.

I think it was World War II was his parents or something he was saying. So they pretended to be Jewish to come here. But they're not actually Jewish and  he's, his family has a restaurant and he doesn't want to do that. So he decides to    he gets him. It's not like he's, someone brought him into it.

He puts himself into the selling weapons. Like he found, took the initiative to find the opportunities to do this  and put himself in danger.  And then the movie, even though I think it's supposed to be not political, does have some political undertones, I would say, like you said. 

Yeah, and  we can just pivot right on through  what are some things that we  liked about the movie?  

 It's hard to say what things I thought were my favorites in the film, because it's  on a subject that's too real and it's happening now.   But I think    the whole,   What I like is the portrayal of what you would consider Yuri the American Dream. His family came here escaping to get refuge from   seeking asylum here in America.

Because they were escaping a war torn  state or area. And they were able to improve   their livelihood,   and  assimilate. And become   citizens. 

Yeah. 

And I feel like that's  like the American dream. One of them   Yuri saw better for himself. He's  I don't want to    it's that. 

I want to say it's that.  I don't want to say it's a  what's the word I'm looking for?  I don't know.  Not a motif   a trope. Is. That trope in society that   people who are not American born who end up getting restaurants, their family  just the children are raised to work in a restaurant and that's all they'll be.

And so in this movie, there was  like that underlying trope that   the kids will just work in the restaurant and that was, that would be their life. And you could see that evident    the youngest brother. That's all he ever wanted for himself. He 

was a chef. 

Yeah.  And I'm not sure if Yuri was like, like what his occupation was in the restaurant, but 

I don't know.

 He worked in it, but yeah, he just, it wasn't something that he was particularly interested in, but his parents for them, that was. Their dream, because even though they had to pretend to, one of the jokes he says is his dad takes them to   to a temple or whatever, but they're not Jewish, and it's because he, they say, the dad says they saved his life, so he takes it really seriously  but the, his kids don't   yeah, they work  in the restaurant, and they live in Queens,  

or Brooklyn.

And I  went on a rant, but  I feel like my, You did 

definitely go on a rant. 

Yeah, I think that's,  My favorite part of the film is just seeing, because here we talk about, oh  the American dream, like people who immigrate here look for a better life. I feel like that would be my favorite part because it's like, it's happening in the film is portraying the best,  like   the, what people with the outside looking in would be considered the American dream.

 This movie didn't have a lot of favorite moments in it because it was very serious.  There were things that, 

yeah. 

I couldn't take away from the third. 

It's hard to have a favorite part of a movie that deals with something like  Arms Dealer, who even though it's, I would say there's some satirical parts and it is a little too real because     there are mass wars happening right now.

 There have always been wars, but there are full on genocides, I think  four or five happening right now. And so to watch it  is kinda weird, cause you're just like   I get it's a movie, and I get that this is   his ideal, and this is like  his motto, what he lives by, but also it feels a little too real, because you also know that    he's providing people the means to kill. 

And he, a big thing he says in the movie is that he's not killing anyone.  And he's not making them utilize   the weapons to do this. But it's also like he's giving it to them.     And if, wanna, I think, to add on to that, I know it's my favorite scene. But it's   if it's not me, it's someone else.

Yeah. So there was always  that was always a quote. That was echoed throughout the film and kind of like really hammered on a lot was that if it's not me It's someone else and another person could be just as cruel or worse   and there was always, that was the message, you always, if it's not me, it's, it could 

be.

Yeah. And he was like, it'd be someone else and they'd be doing the same thing and they could be worse. And I'm like, I don't know if    that's a justification for this. But clearly he points out many times in the movie, he does not have a conscience either way. He doesn't feel good, he doesn't feel bad for what he does.

 And he. It's not like he wants war, but he's  I enjoy doing this, and he does it not simply because he has to, he does it because he says he's good at it,  and he likes it, he's  he gets like a thrill out of it.  Which is interesting, but that's more so like my least favorite parts. My, I have two favorite parts in the film.   

 One of them is when he does   what do they call it? Where it's   the, he does the gunpowder from the bullet and cocaine. It's a little brown or whatever is what they call it.  

In Africa. Yeah. Or, I think it's Africa. It's Africa. It is Africa, 

yeah. 

But the   he's there at a bar and these people     the village and the   the locals have developed like this new thing of lacing the cocaine.

They'll take gunpowder and they'll mix it with cocaine so it's brown. Yeah, and they call it a 

little brown. 

Call it a little brown. And  they, the soldiers do this. They like help spice them up or get them.    Put them in some kind of like trance of  like they take it and they feel like  they're getting some kind of    superhuman ability over them to perform the acts of what they're doing 

that or just gives them the courage because they're out of their mind.

Yeah, I get the 

courage. So Nick Cage does this.  And he is just tripping out of his mind. He is 

tripping balls. He, and  I think that's why it made, I, it's one of my favorite scenes because he, Nick Cage and all of his movies that he does, he's always like too much   or too ill, or he's acting crazy or doing something and it doesn't always fit, but I feel like in this movie he was so good at being serious that like it even made it more unsettling because I couldn't joke about his.

His personality   like I couldn't joke about him being bad in the movie or anything like that. It was just too He was too on point. So then I was like, oh, this is weird and then he got the moment   to act a fool when he was freaking did a little brown and then was having unprotected sex and was imagining things and   and  it was funny.

He did a good job. Then I, so I liked that scene because he's tripping real hard.  

Now,  I have one another thing.  I can say my favorite scene, but it's when the locals, so he's going to be found out he's on a plane with all his merchandise that he said. Oh, yeah. And he has to land. And his crew just ups and ditches him, so what else he can do is that he gives his merchandise to the locals for free. 

And then   we forgot to mention Ethan Hawke was in this movie, but what I consider my favorite scene is that  while Ethan Hawke has already put Nick Cage in handcuffs, we see a deconstruction of a Carrier plane get broken down by the locals within a 24 hour period. 

Yeah. 

And they sped it up and I'm thinking  does he not hear this happening  at all?

Like people just  they're just taking the plane apart piece by piece with tools. Of course the metal and all that stuff is valuable. But  I don't know if that's    something that could happen in real time.  But it was just interesting to see that.  The locals broke down the plane in 24 hours and just left a carcass.  

 And then, cause Nick Cage's character's  yeah, I'll just wake up the next day and I'll just get a crew and I'll fly myself out of here and wake up and this plane is just gone. 

It's gone. He  just watches it be taken apart.  And I will say too, the reason why he has to is  it's not illegal for him to sell.

I believe  weapons and   other things with the weapons, I think, maybe it was like the ammunition, I can't remember  it's not illegal for him to sell them separately, but for him to sell them as one, it is illegal, and so he would forge paperwork to be able to do it, to  get past Ethan Hawke or whoever, and he  he forgot to Forge it on this trip and that's why he had to land the plane and   his pilot was gone And then he just gave all the guns to the people  in africa, I think it was libya 

Nick cage was like this was an audition for jack sparrow of some sort because The lucidness of Yuri, his character, when law enforcement was around or whenever he was in a tight situation that was  uncomfortable in his way just to    It's all gonna work out.

Yeah, 

or here's an idea. Oh, that's never gonna work and it works out Anyways, he had that kind of  Jack Sparrow Elusiveness   oh you caught me, but I bet you I'm just gonna get out of here. 

Yeah, he had the  he had   the  Calm and collective of someone who is not  in a serious  in a serious situation.

So you're right  Jack Sparrow was always like, I got a trick up my sleeve. That's what his vibe was. Like, he seemed so unbothered by all these. He gets shot and he still is just   I'm fine.  And  yeah, he's got this very lackadaisical approach.  I think  

what other scene, okay, and for those,  Jared Leto was in this. 

He plays his brother, his little brother. 

And it made me realize, like, why did he give up acting? 

He hasn't. He's been in other movies.  I 

don't 

know. Let's not talk about Suicide Squad, but he was in Morbius. I 

 Morbius was like, eugh. 

But he was also in that one with Lady Gaga, or the Versace movie.   I guess I haven't seen him in a lot of films.

And I That one, if you had not pointed out to me   Who he was, I would have been like, oh, that's some random actor. Cause he looked like a character from the Vampire Diaries, one of the actors.  And, 

yeah, so J. R., I think my, I'm  torn between it being my least.  Favorite scene because 

I thought you're still doing favorite scenes.

Oh,  

you didn't even pivot. You have there's no pivot. There's no segue. 

Yeah. So  this is I 

have one more favorite scene. So 

this is  like I'm torn because   I want to put it as a favorite scene. It's like a climax.  It's when they his younger brother to  like is consciously aware of what they're doing and they're at a     a weapons exchange and his brother decides, his younger brother decides to destroy the  the weapons  and in the process get killed because he realizes that the weapons that they are now giving to this   battalion regime is going to be used to wipe out this  refugee camp. 

And  he goes out  on a suicide mission, knowing he's going to get shot and killed, but doing whatever he can to stop.  And that's my favorite scene.    But it's like tragic because,  again, Yuri.  Brushes it off. 

Yeah,  he really does brush it off.  That was going to be my other favorite scene actually, and  I think that the reason his brother exists, whether or not this man was real is to be like   the   the opposite  of what Yuri is  because his brother, while he does also commit it.

Commit these like his he convinces his brother because he's like you're not meant to be a cook To come with him and be his backup because who can you trust outside of family? He doesn't trust anyone else  except his brother, but while yuri   Is unbothered by everything unfazed very jack sparrowy  his brother Definitely it like weighs on him the things that they're doing   He's like in the beginning he gets Bothered by like those people being killed when they were  when they got the  the coke or whatever  he gets bothered by those people  who were likely just civilians being murdered, like a mom and a child  and he wants to shoot and his brother's  leave it alone.

It doesn't concern us.  So he's very bothered. And then he goes on a bender and has an addiction to drugs. And I think it just takes its toll on him. And he finally gets clean and sobered   and makes his life about what he wants to be. And then that's when Yuri comes back and asks him to come and join him again.

And that's when he ends up,    dying because he sees those people   hack up     the mom and the child with machetes. And he's  they're going to use this. They're going to use these weapons  to kill these innocent villagers and Nick Cage does not care.  He's  whatever they do with this is not my problem. 

 And his brother doesn't like that. He doesn't like that. So he goes and   he blows up the first car killing  the, I think it's Libya. He's like the king of Libya or the president or whatever, his son.   And then he ends up getting shot up. And he. Still, after being shot multiple times, tries to take the grenade pin out to blow up the other one.

And so I think that the  I liked it because I think it showed the dichotomy of the two.  And also just that the brother, that's something he really wanted to do.  He knew he was gonna die doing it, but he still made the choice to do it. I think 

it also  reminded of   you, scenes of them when they were being oppressed.

In the war and that  just ate away at him, he goes, you're doing the thing that we escaped from because it was happening to us and here you are supplying these individuals who are dictators who are doing the exact same thing that when we were younger, our families were freed from. 

Yeah.  

So he's  it's just, it's a cycle.

Like he saw it. I think he saw himself. Individuals, so 

I think so too and I think he was he saw himself and  he says at one point  what did they call the little place that they were? I know it was Odessa, but there they had a name for the little area and Queens  I don't remember but there was one part where    he's already  started doing cocaine and stuff like that and   he's with Nick Cage before he goes on his whoo, or no, he's making the thing, the Ukraine  and  he's  I miss it.

I miss like where  their restaurant is and  being there and cooking, being a cook. So  he's okay with being that. That version of, or whatever it was their life was destined to be, he was happy with that, his brother was not, and so I thought it was interesting that he was fine with it, and Yuri was not fine with it   and ultimately his brother ended up dying, and  I guess we can pivot into least favorite scenes, but  I was gonna say, but his brother does not stop doing what he did, even with his brother dying.   

 I, it,  there's a lot of least favorite scenes in this,  but a lot of, I think,  when,  I won't say like least favorite scene, I think Nick Cage, Yuri, the character, just became my least favorite person. Yeah, I was gonna say. Because. He, again, he was so knowledgeable about the law of transporting goods, that he knew how to game the system, and you were like, is,  when is the shoe ever going to drop  for him, because  you're knowing  you want to,  parts of people will root for him  oh, he's getting, he's undermining the authority, yes, but  you also know he's responsible for the murder of, you Many people that use the guns that he's selling.

Yeah. 

And the worst part is that we ended up finding out that his uncle is a general.  And so a lot of the weapons. In Russia, right? 

Or Ukraine. 

Ukraine.  

It's something. Yeah, he's, it's     he's a general, and once the war ends, he's able to go back   because I'm assuming he couldn't because he was    a refugee, so he probably would've been like, he probably would've been killed had he gone back during the war.

But he went back.   His uncle is like a general, and all these weapons that were being used for the war are now no longer being used. So he starts taking them and selling them. 

Yeah, he starts selling 'em.  The weapons are second hand used, it's the AK 47   I can't say there's  not a worse scene, but  overall the character Yuri was like a worse individual, just because he didn't,  he was like, he had the ideology like  as I mentioned earlier, if it's not me it's someone else   I'm the one that's gonna be coming up   it's  actually    he, this all stemmed, like the path that he went on, stemmed from him being turned down to join a company that   does this in a more legit way. 

So that's what sparked him. He goes, I want to one up this person in any way possible. 

Is it the guy who ends up getting shot? Oh, 

the person that he, so his competitor who ends up becoming his competitor, he ends up  inadvertently killing. And then,  

I don't know about inadvertently because he doesn't tell the guy to stop. 

I use the words inadvertently because he physically didn't put, he had to hit the trigger. His gun, his finger was on the trigger point, but he Effectively didn't pull the trigger, but also didn't stop it. So he inadvertently killed this person 

True, 

but he also at the same time made no qualms to prevent him like hey, this is bad 

Yeah  it's   true 

and Batman begins At the end of the movie batman's like i'm not gonna save you but i'm not gonna kill you either Yeah jumps out and the person dies because   the train's gonna on a collision course like   so he was there, he could've saved the guy, but he didn't speak up.

He didn't speak up because he was mad that he got rejected, as so often happens with men.   I would say I agree, I wouldn't say it's like not favorite, like bad scenes, like least favorite scenes. I think the movie was good, and I think it was well acted and well produced, and the opening sequence is probably one of the better ones.

People said it all online, I saw it too in all their reviews. Probably one of the better sequences I've seen, so  I did  a lot of that aspects, but I think what you said is pretty much on point for me too. It's not like a least favorite scene, it's a least liked character. Like he played him so well that  I didn't like him at all.

Like I just didn't like him at all  and then after you would think like the death of his family  brother would change him 

and  it didn't  

 I feel like this is where Nick cages character from family man went  right into Lords of war. And then when he came back, he goes, what? Different scenario, but yeah, like 

maybe  

because you're under the impression some people have that near death experience or a death in the family and they have this conscious thinking of like They reevaluate and they pivot   yuri  Didn't have any you know  of flags green flags To initiate that he was going to pivot at all, he was the same person from the beginning of the film to the end of the film.

The only thing is, he was more determined. He felt like he didn't have any barriers to prevent him from  you know what, I'm just going to go balls to the wall. Yeah. Because his brother was   That, I don't want to say mediator, but like the little angel on her shoulder. Like the moral compass, almost.

 Yeah  I'm okay with selling guns   it's profitable,  but he was also controlling his brother with cocaine. So literally, it was like,  he was there to make him feel good about himself that he was doing it,  nippling his own brother by giving him cocaine.   

 

  It's hard to root for the character of Yuri and Nick Cage played him so well.

I feel like He's just evolving, like, all these characters are just Nick Cage in his real form.  They could have just called this Yuri guy and labeled him Nick Cage and people would have been perfectly fine. Yeah, 

possibly.  Yeah, he does play him so well that you hate him.  I think though the overall  parts of  the character that you hate are really just things that, I don't know, the way he tries to, like we've talked about it already, or we keep touching on it, but the way he tries to write off his actions  I would say his, what is the, his responsibility, or his ownership, or like the part he plays in it, The way he tries to write it off as though  he is not responsible for anything that happens with these weapons, which Is true like that is a huge and that's I think it bothers me because it's a huge message we have now with  the NRA and guns   and people being like, it's not guns that kill people.

It's people that kill people. And it's  yes, that is true. But also if you're giving people these weapons without any barriers.  They're more likely to utilize them  in when in moments of conflict like  and Whether or not it's your choice. You didn't put that gun You didn't tell them to grab it and do it But you did give them like an open door and you were like, here's all these weapons You do what you want to do, and it's  you're still responsible  for the choices   that person makes if you gave them the access to that   you know?

I think what made it more  no good scenes in this movie, and   the such  disdain for Yuri, was that  Guns has a very low to no point of entry to get into   the learning curve on it is not that   not complicated.  An average person could use a gun with ease  to   hunt   injure someone  kill, and so  I think that's why it made it more disdainful of the character because   he's essentially Selling something that it's fairly accessible to get  now present day, but   there's no Barrier to like to get like for you to use a gun  But yeah, if you really wanted to kill someone, you know with a sword you had to be really skilled With that weapon and be like, oh,  Jim and what's his name had a duel.

 Jim just got his arm cut off And  he's in the hospital.  I guess he wasn't skilled with that sword. Yeah. Now it's like you don't   there is not that barrier or skill involved. And especially 

with the AK 

47. And  I think  there was a lot of,  I don't want to say third world countries, but there was a lot of countries who are now allies who were using kids as soldiers.

And  and not men. And so that also plays into the fact that how the barrier to entry for these weapons was very low. Because they were essentially saying, Kids can use them! 

Yeah, and that too, with it, like him saying he's not making the choice, like this war is going to, people are going to do it regardless.

He's just getting in on it sort of thing. It does take his moral, it takes his responsibility and his moral responsibility out of the equation because  for example, how do you justify. Kids getting it   today, unfortunately   school shootings is a very real thing.  How do you justify  that one person that did it  in Georgia?

 The parent was responsible, was also held responsible. And I think  that's fair, because, again, a child is not going to have access. A child's not going to choose to be a soldier. They're putting these weapons in these kids hands and being like, go do it. And because they're so easy to operate, for the most part   They are able to do that, like if they were more difficult things that required more skill, they wouldn't just give them to seven or eight year olds because  they're less likely to be able to manage it and utilize it to    for the type of violence that they want.

But yeah, I just didn't like  his whole, I would say there's like a few, there's three moments that I just was like, God, this guy's the worst. And that was always when he was talking about the speech of him being like, they're gonna do it anyway. I am just profiting, blah, blah, 

blah, blah. Or he kept saying that he's a necessary evil, he's a 

necessary like evil.

And  he's  I am. He's  I don't discriminate. I sell to all to everyone. So I sell to Everyone 

can be 

catching. Yeah, everyone can be catching it. And I'm just like  this is terrible. It how I wouldn't, I certainly wouldn't be able okay with myself if I was doing that, but I guess  he's doesn't have.  

 Yes, I didn't like that or I mean it wasn't my I wasn't my favorite I Wasn't fond of it. I should say and then also the second one  

even when  you think you know,  there might be some silver lining there is not because Again,  Yuri excurses system.    He understands There's always going to be a conflict and there's always going to be guns and he said once you know that  people like him become very valuable.

So  it was like  it, I don't know, there was no upside to this movie. 

Yeah. Oh  I was going to say another one, at least of some of the things that I didn't enjoy was particularly how   like you said it.  It shows   the prophet,  not even the, he says he's an equal opportunity per individual, which I believe is true, but he's also moving weapons into countries where people don't even have certain resources, so like you're putting weapons before education, before healthcare, like in, in Africa or in Libya, there's, he ends up talking about like the AIDS crisis that's there, And he's, instead of bringing things that could actually maybe help benefit or do anything like that, he's just bringing weapons.

And I feel like it's taking advantage to a certain degree   because you're encouraging warfare in these places to, to continue to   allow his job to exist, right? The existence of arm, being an arm sealer, he says it would be there either way, whether or not that's true. I, you still Need someone to supply it to them.

If there's no suppliers, then there, there may be no buyers because they're not thinking that's an option. So if you just come and you oversaturate people in the market with it, then people are going to start being like, Oh, that is an option. And then they're going to start utilizing it. So I didn't like that.

And then I would say the last thing. is he did not care about anyone but himself.   He didn't seem to care about his wife who he lied to and worked really hard to make her fall in love with him or his son who he says he loved but didn't seem to care about when she took him away.  He didn't seem to care about his brother.

And even after his brother was killed or his parents who chose not to talk to him anymore He didn't seem bothered by that either He says it's a serious moment, but he still goes back into the business of being an arms dealer Like he lost his whole family for this and he was willing to kill his competitor which  is Wild.

It's just wild. He's a wild choice. Yeah, he's 

very detached. 

I would say he's very self serving, I think is who he is. Yes. And it doesn't make any sense, because for a while it seemed like he was doing it because he wanted to build a lifestyle and impress his, the girl that he was in love with. 

It goes against his own motto, the only person you can trust as family.

He destroyed his own family. That's what 

I'm saying  he says he can only rely and trust his family, but he completely destroys them. So I'm just like  and then he doesn't seem to care about it. So how are they the only ones he could trust?     He  went against his own motto, and the things he seems to be doing it for  or he says he's doing it for.

Don't seem to be true  it doesn't seem like he cares about how much money he has  or his lifestyle, or how he can help his family  that, I think all of that comes second and third and so on,  to him actually, to  the rush he gets from selling the weapons,  I think  that's it  I think he enjoys it, he enjoys the feeling he gets From putting his life on the line. 

He likes 

the chaos. 

Yeah, he likes the chaos.  He enjoys that. And that's why He continues to do it because it's like, he says his brother is an addict, but he's an addict too. He's addicted to doing this. That's his, yeah, and   Which 

probably would be a good point  pivot to what is overall rating we should give this?

I 

forgot, 1 out of 5? 1 out of 10?  

 We'll use a numeric rating system. We'll do one out of five. 

One out of five? Okay. I would say  acting wise and things like that, I'm gonna give it a 3. 5.  I'm gonna give it 3. 5 in Nick Cage's.  Because they all, everyone in it   acted really well. Jared Leto is a decent actor.

 He, I've seen Requiem for a Dream. He does great in that. He's a weird dude. And pretty sure he's like leader of a cult but  in real life, but  he's never been a bad actor He there have been bad roles like joker, but you know He's never been a bad actor. Like he is good at what he does and this kind of showed it  and then everyone else did really well too,  Ethan Hawke, who was not in the movie as much as you thought he'd be, Nick Cage, the woman who played his wife  they all did well, like I, I thought it was good, so I'll give it 3.

5 Nick Cages.  

I'm also gonna  go with you and give it 3 and a 0. 5 Nick Cages. I feel like this is just an insight to a working man known as Nick Cage, the life and struggle of what Nick Cage goes through.  He's battling  his own demons, these are the things that we see because it was focused on him all the time.

You had 24 seven Nick Cage, so 

24 seven Nick Cage, 

which is on the part. But yeah, I would agree with you. I will give you, give it three and a half stars or Nick Cages.  But now that we've gotten that out of the way,  I think we can get to our next section where we read  reviews from users on Letterboxd. I myself have two that we selected, and my sister has two.

And how we'll do this is that we'll   we'll say the username, and then we'll read the review and the rating  that user gave. So I think I'm going to go first. 

Okay. 

So I have Jake Alder Coffee.    They gave it three and a half stars  entertaining, but this movie made me want to do drugs,  . And you know what?

I would've to agree with you, I don't do drugs myself, but   just, I haven't done 'em in a long time. I intense stress that   you  feel watching this or just watching the cage come along in the film. Can    can drive you to a new addiction. 

Yeah. Yeah, I would say too Yeah, it was very stressful like I watching the movie it made me we say there's a word we use Nessia, which is like cranky.

It made me like anxious cranky. Like I was just Wondering. I just, I felt like something bad was gonna happen. Obviously there's weapons involved, but I just didn't like it. I didn't like his Kim. And  you, you wanna sometimes root for a person, but I was like, I can't root for anything for this guy.   I hope he dies actually.

And he didn't. So I was like, wow, nothing went my way in this movie, .   So yeah, I could see that. IWI almost thought you were gonna have one of mine, but mine is from someone called Tim Cop. Don't know what that is, but they gave it two and a half stars And they said in this movie Nick Cage snorts a line of gunpowder and cocaine mixed together and doesn't act Anywhere near as crazy as when he was just a drunk dad and mom and dad  And I'm like, yeah, actually he's one of his more somber roles like he was that's the craziest he gets and he's not even that crazy Because you would expect someone to be crazy when they snort a little fucking gunpowder.

People get crazy when they snort bath salts.   Someone tried to eat someone's arm while snorting bath salts. So you would think he'd get insane, and he doesn't. He just seems like he's drunk  sorta. 

Yeah, and there, I don't know if that's how,  for some reason, science, I was thinking, man, he's also smoking cigars.

So what if  he,  there's a lot of things there. But I'm gonna read my next one which is from lights Connor and action see what you did there  he gave it four stars and His review is Nick Cage is trying to convince us that he can speak Russian Chinese and Arabic is a painful as watching warlords slaughter families 

Yeah  

Which  I mean he does  Really is painful, but he gave it a high rating. 

   His accent and him trying to speak those languages is definitely, like in the movie, the character says, I have a knack for languages. I was like, no, you don't, Nick Cage, you sound terrible.  You sound like someone who was told to say these words this way by someone in your ear, and then you just said it  he's not doing a great job.

These are like Con air with Nick Cage having a southern accent. Yeah, exactly  

Exactly. Yeah. No same that's pretty much what it sounds like that's pretty much what it is  So yeah, and it but it is hard to watch the those people murder like families like watching that happen on screen even if It's a movie is hard to watch.

So I get that. My second one is  From someone named Harry Argyle.  I know if that's your real name, but if it is cool last name They gave it four stars and they said in another life Nick Cage absolutely sells guns Like there is no question in my mind and I'm like, yeah, he probably in another life. He probably does  

Decide to act.

I believe it.   If 

You know he's doing something   maybe he was so good in this movie because the kind of personality you need to be in this movie is the personality he has naturally. Yeah. 

I feel like,  I think we mentioned it before, he's just playing himself. Pretending to be these people. Yeah.

It's  Oh, I'm this kid. I'm Yuri. No, I think you're just playing Nick Cage, who happens to be a gun runner. Yeah.  I'm Nick Cage and I'm a gun runner.  I think  that's that I, and I think  that's why he, even though I wouldn't say he's a bad actor, it's just very much like when he's playing someone, you can't. 

necessarily fall into the character. We were just talking about this with Willem Dafoe, who's got such a unique, specific voice and look that you would think he would stand out more in roles.    And seem like he couldn't be different people, but he does a really good job of acting in these roles so that you don't think of him as Willem Dafoe when you're watching him.

 You think of him as the person that he is. When I'm watching Nic Cage, I'm always like, I feel like this is Nic Cage.   This is Nic Cage  acting as though he's this person.  

Trying out for another profession. Yeah, 

so it's just  that's what it feels like. So I totally get it. He's Nick Cage playing a gun, like a gun runner.  

 What? So I could see him doing it in another life. Honestly, this man bought like a crypt for himself. He's fucking weird.  

 That's all the time we have for this episode. Oh  

They're making a sequel. Sorry not to cut you off But for everyone who anyone who's listening might be interested in this movie They're making a sequel and I guess it's supposed to be about a son, right?

Yeah, it's him and his son ends up taking the role of his brother who passed away and not sure if it's going to continue like It will be a time skip which I think there will be But yes There is a sequel. We found this out Oddly enough, but we were picking this movie to watch  Not sure when It's gonna come out, but they finished filming march of last year.

So probably in the next year or two Yeah, so anyway, that's all I had to add 

Yeah, and again, we'd like to thank you for listening, and do you have any closing words? 

 I guess the only thing I would say is, I lost my hand. I lost my wife. Johnny has his hand. Johnny has his wife. I literally, I remember all his words, and sometimes I forget it's from that movie.

Yep.  We'll catch you guys in the next one. I'm a 

vampire. I'm a vampire.

 📍 Okay, wow, that was so much fun! Your host totally nailed it, right? Like, how amazing was that? dont forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode—because, honestly, why would you? And if you loved it, leave a review or, like, tell your friends. its like, the nicest thing ever. Thanks for listening, and remember: stay fabulous, stay emulated, and ill see you next time! Byeee