I ini­tially dis­missed Lord of War when the trail­ers and posters first appeared. In other words, it got caught in the crude men­tal fil­ters that rou­tinely han­dle my first-pass “ignore” of all the crap that flows through my eyes and ears all day every day. But when my reg­u­lar email newslet­ter from Amnesty Inter­na­tional endorsed the film, it seemed pos­si­ble this was some­thing more sub­stan­tial than National Treasure.

And it is. In an impres­sive mar­ket­ing slight-of-hand, Lions Gate mar­keted it as an action com­edy. But like Syr­i­ana, Lord of War is actu­ally a very strongly-felt top­i­cal film loosely based on actual events. It has a more human and darkly comedic tone than Syr­i­ana, which often felt like a very consciously-constructed intel­lec­tual puz­zle. But on the other hand, Syriana’s strict focus is per­haps a virtue; Lord of War’s sev­eral dra­matic plot­lines involv­ing the main character’s mar­riage and way­ward brother don’t always sit very well against the larger themes of entrenched human violence.

For another Nico­las Cage trea­sure hid­den in plain sight, I rec­om­mend Rid­ley Scott’s Match­stick Men.