The arms trade is one of the three most profitable industries on the planet. Those three industries somewhat ironically have the acronym G.O.D. - guns, oil and drugs - the total trade of which amounts to trillions of dollars annually. Predictably, guns inflict the most harm on the human race, although their use is often closely tied to the acquisition and trade of the other two commodities. It's a tangled web of greed in which profits take priority over people. Making a movie centering around a man who deals in arms is obviously going to be a sensitive issue - how do you make him a character you can engage with as an audience without ignoring the ramifications of his actions? Lord of War begins with an extended shot beginning in an arms factory and following the life of a bullet from manufacturing to discharge. Ingeniously shot, we see the process from the point of view of the bullet right up to the point where it is taken out of its crate in war-torn Africa, loaded into a machine gun and fired down a street in the midst of a skirmish - straight into the forehead of a child soldier. It captures the true horror of the arms trade, with the large profits implied in the scale of manufacturing and distribution to the sad loss of life and atrocity of war itself. Despite the heavy use of voiceover from the central character, arms dealer Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) which throughout the film offers considerable background information as well as his own moral justification for being involved in such a profitable yet deadly business, Lord of War fails to reiterate its central point as succinctly and powerfully as in its sustained opening shot. It proves that striking imagery is sometimes a far more potent a tool for delivering a strong message than lengthy exposition can match.