Got a chance to see the film - Lord of War. It’s about the life of an arms dealer played brilliantly (as usual, as we seen recently in National Treasure)by Nicolas Cage. The opening credits set the stage for the film when itshows the journey of a bullet as it travels from an assembly line tothe head of a boy in Africa.
While the film may not be theyear’s best, it’s an essay on the black market in arms right throughhistory. How the Cold War let both the super powers to amass arms for ashowdown that never happened. The decline of the powerful Soviet Union, which led to an arms chest with no owners leading to billions ofdollars worth of arms stolen and sold to the highest bidder in theblack market. The film cleverly makes references to actual people andevents which took place.
One of the lines in the film are that thebest exports from Russia to the world were ’AK-47s, vodka and caviar..in that order’. Infact the AK-47 has been seen to be more a weapon ofmass destruction than a nuclear warhead. For more on all this read here. Amnesty International even has a section in support of the film.
It’sa telling comment when at the end the film mentions that the top fiveleading arms sellers of the world are also permanent members of the UNSecurity Council. How ironical is that?