History Film / LordOfWar

** Yuri Orlov (the eponymous "Lord of War"), Simeon Weisz, and some minor characters. Yuri even provides the trope image.

* HollywoodLaw: Interpol gets portrayed as something of an international FBI, with field agents who hunt down arms traffickers. This is not the case. Interpol serves as a network to coordinate the efforts of national police combating international crimes (including arms trafficking). It has no agents who can make arrests. Interpol primarily serves to put different national police agencies in contact with each, maintain a criminal database and put out notices of wanted criminals. In any case, Interpol agents would have no authority to be holding an arms trafficker, and a US Army general would have no authority to have them release him.

* LifeImitatesArt: in 2012 Viktor Bout, the main inspiration for the character of Yuri was sentenced to 25 years in prison for illegal arms dealing. In 2022 he was released in exchange for American sports star Brittney Griner who had been sentenced to 9 years in a Russian prison for cannabis possession, much as Yuri is able to escape custody.

** Yuri claims the US military doesn't take their munitions when leaving a warzone, saying "it costs more to bring it back than to buy new stock." The US military does, in fact, take its munitions with them; every service member takes their personal issued weapon(s) with them (and will be in deep trouble if it goes missing) and every round of usable ammunition is returned for inspection and re-issue (for example, three ships returned full of ammo after Desert Storm).
*** There is some [[TruthInTelevision truth]] in this, though. Typically when the US leaves a warzone, it will typically sell or donate large stockpiles of weapons and equipment to local allies and partners which can find their way into the black market through various means. For example, much of the American equipment in ISIS and Taliban hands were typically looted and captured from the reformed Iraqi Army and Afghani National Army

** Yuri Orlov (the eponymous "Lord of War"), Simeon Weisz, and some minor characters.

** The film starts in an ammunition factory in in Odessa. It does not exist and never did.

* CowboyCop: Subverted. Agent Valentine clearly wants to be one of these at times - sometimes quite visibly ''struggling'' with himself - but over the course of the entire movie he resists the temptation to break his own code of conduct, adhering strictly to the rule of law at all times. [[DownerEnding It doesn't work out all that well for him.]] He does break the rules when he "detains" Yuri by handcuffing him and leaving him on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere for 24 hours.

* TheBadGuyWins: Yuri finds some way to get away from Valentine every time, and when at last he doesn't it's only temporary - he turns an apparent defeat into a profitable win, utterly destroying Valentine's resolve in the meantime; he does suffer emotional loss, but goes right back to smuggling guns - presumably without Valentine being an obstacle anymore.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Interpol Agent Jack Valentine. Appropriate for an ActionGenreHeroGuy.

->''"You know who's going to inherit the Earth? Arms dealers. Because everyone else is too busy killing each other. That's the secret to survival. Never go to war. Especially with yourself."

----

* AllForNothing: Valentine finally succeeds in his hunt of Yuri, only to have all he's worked for invalidated by the fact that [[spoiler:Yuri is too well-connected and far too useful to Valentine's bosses, up to and including the President, in acting as their middleman in global arms trades to ever face justice for his crimes.]]

** At one point, Valentine manages to corner Yuri but he doesn't have any concrete evidence to justify arresting him (since Yuri already had the local villagers take all the guns away). Valentine instead cited that he's legally allowed to 'detain' Yuri for 24 hours and he's gonna use every single second of it and handcuff Yuri to a briefcase and strand him in a middle of nowhere, reasoning that one day of Yuri not going about his gunrunning business means one more day given to the innocent people who would've been killed by the guns he's selling.

* {{Realpolitik}}: Yuri Orlov tries to ingratiate himself with Simeon Weisz, an established and influential ArmsDealer. Weisz rebukes him, pointing out that he sells arms for political reasons. When Orlov points out that he sold weapons to both the Iraqis and the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War, he counters by stating that he wanted ''[[PyrrhicVictory both]]'' [[PyrrhicVictory sides to lose in that conflict]]. The end of the Cold War causes no small amount of disillusionment to the man, since new arms dealers are only interested in profit and don't care who they sell to.

** The film starts in Odessa arms factory. It does not exist and never did.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: Yuri's brother and uncle are killed, his parents disown him, his wife leaves him and takes his only son with her. Agent Valentine's view of justice and righteousness are shattered when Yuri is allowed to go free after being caught red-handed, due to his role as a "necessary evil." And Yuri is left to ponder whether or not the United States will dispose of him when he stops being useful to them.]] On the other hand, [[spoiler:Yuri is free and rich]], so depending on how sympathetic you find him this ''could'' qualify as a BittersweetEnding. Even if you're rooting for Yuri, the end is pretty depressing (see PyrrhicVillainy below).

* KarmaHoudini: Yuri is, sort of, but at a [[PyrrhicVillainy price]]. He loses [[spoiler:his brother, his love, his child, and is disowned by his parents,]] but he doesn't really care - only that cash keeps flowing in.

* PyrrhicVillainy: [[spoiler: Yuri manages to evade the law and escape a long stay in prison to continue his gunrunning. However, this comes at the cost of his brother and uncle being killed, his parents disowning him, and his one true love divorcing him and taking his only son with her. Plus he seems to [[HeelRealization realize that he's the bad guy]] in all this, but he can't get away from it. He is also aware that he only escaped jail due to being considered useful to the U.S. government which means that as soon as he stops being useful, he will be disposed of. This is hammered home by the Interpol agent chasing him saying that [[FateWorseThanDeath he would like to wish that Yuri would go to Hell, but he thinks he's already there.]]]]

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Yuri gets away with his gunrunning crimes and gets to continue supplying weapons to already war-torn countries as a middleman for the powerful.]] [[spoiler:But he's also struck by PyrrhicVillainy, as come the end of the film, he's either lost or alienated everyone he cared about and has only the soul-sucking practice of arms-dealing to look forward to.]]

* AffablyEvil:
** Andre Baptiste, a brutal African warlord, is friendly and welcoming to Yuri. Andre Junior, who is a renowned cannibal, is even worse but no less affable, if only around Yuri.
** Yuri himself, who is the film's protagonist and at the same time, at his best, an amoral arms dealer.

%%* DramaticGunCock

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: This is a ''very'' cynical movie.

* BecauseImGoodAtIt: The ultimate reason that Yuri can never completely give up arms dealing, despite the many reasons to do so and try to settle down for a normal life.

* ChekhovsGun: Literally.

* FiringOneHanded: Several (apparently not very-well trained) African mooks do this.
* FirstLawOfTragicomedies

** Lampshaded and subverted in the scene where one of Yuri's customers tries to pay him in cocaine. Yuri initially refuses since he deals in arms not drugs, saying he has standards when the customer tells him to diversify. Yuri gets a bullet in the side for his defiance, agrees to the deal and duly makes a tidy profit off the cocaine. However, it appears that Yuri does not make a habit out of selling drugs.

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: Yuri states that his mother is Catholic. While not impossible, it is more likely that she would have been Orthodox, which was the majority faith of Christians in the Soviet Union and Ukraine in particular (Catholics make up a small minority). Western regions of Ukraine do have "Greek Catholics" (basically, Orthodoxes, who obey the Pope), but they are even less common in Odessa.

--->'''Yuri:''' But's not closed. And while certain people might interpret this cargo as suspicious, thank God we live in a world where suspicion alone does not constitute a crime, and where me like you respect the rule of law.

** The Soviet Union phased out the AKM[[note]]which itself replaced the AK-47 as a similar-but-improved model early in TheFifties[[/note]] in 1974, replacing it with the AK-74 in 5.45x39mm (although full issuance took until [[UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan the Afghan invasion]] five to ten years later). Further, Soviet troops in 1991 are shown using [[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Lord_of_War#Norinco_Type_56-1 Norinco Type 56-1s]], Chinese copies of the AKMS, despite Soviet troops never using Chinese equipment, and [[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Lord_of_War#SA_Vz.58 Czech SA Vz. 58 rifles]] in the background of the Ukrainian armoury. The majority of rifles given to guerilla troops, however, are actual [[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Lord_of_War#AKM Soviet AKM rifles]] and [[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Lord_of_War#AKMS East German AKMS rifles]], while Yuri holds an actual [[http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Lord_of_War#AK-47 AK-47]] when touting its prowess.

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: Yuri states that his mother is Catholic. While not impossible, it is more likely that she would have been Orthodox, which was the majority faith of Christians in the Soviet Union and the Ukraine in particular (Catholics make up a small minority). Western regions of Ukraine do have "Greek Catholics" (basically, Orthodoxes, who obey the Pope), but they are even less common in Odessa.

* LoopholeAbuse: At one point, Valentine manages to corner Yuri but he doesn't have any concrete evidence to justify arresting him (since Yuri already had the local villagers take all the guns away). Valentine instead cited that he's legally allowed to 'detain' Yuri for 24 hours and he's gonna use every single second of it and handcuff Yuri to a briefcase and strand him in a middle of nowhere, reasoning that one day of Yuri not going about his gunrunning business means one more day given to the innocent people who would've been killed by the guns he's selling.

-->"You know, they accuse me of rigging elections. But after this -- with your Florida and your Supreme Court of kangaroos -- now, the U.S. must shut up forever."

** While on his drug trip, Vitaly forms a cocaine outline of Ukraine. It's backwards, but this could be because he's high and working off memory. Yuri tells him he'll overdose before he gets to Kiev, which is in central Ukraine and is not present in the outline.
** Central Monrovia (Liberia capital) of 1980s is shown as nothing but slums. This is not true. If Andre Baptiste or Yuri himself wanted, finding a better hotel would not be a problem.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: While on his drug trip, Vitaly forms a cocaine outline of Ukraine. It's backwards, but this could be because he's high and working off memory. Yuri tells him he'll overdose before he gets to Kiev, which is in central Ukraine and is not present in the outline.

* ArtisticLicenseReligion: Yuri states that his mother is Catholic. While not impossible, it is more likely that she would have been Orthodox, which was the majority faith of Christians in the Soviet Union and the Ukraine in particular (Catholics make up a small minority).

* HollywoodLaw: Interpol gets portrayed as something of an international FBI, with field agents who hunt down arms traffickers. This is not the case. Interpol serves as a network to coordinate the efforts of national police combating international crimes (including arms trafficking). It has no agents who can make arrests. Interpol primarily serves to put different national police agencies in contact with each, maintain a criminal database and put out notices of wanted criminals. In any case, a US Army general would have no authority to have Interpol agents release an arms trafficker (which they would not be holding anyway).