Lord of War (2005)

However you slice it, I do believe that Nicolas Cage has been one very lucky actor.  Far from being a conventionally good-looking lead, he manages to attract starring roles.  I have nothing particularly negative to say about his skills as an actor, despite his occasional blatant miscasting (Captain Corelli springs to mind), but his acting chops do not strike me as being top of the class, just better than average.  So like I say, he has been lucky.  In this film he plays Yuri, the son of Ukrainian immigrants living in Brooklyn's Little Odessa, who early on gets seduced by the potential richness of the arms-dealing life -- and he is very good at it.  He does not attempt to justify the ends which his weapons provide nor does he try to adapt a holier-than-thou approach despite the violence he encounters; it's just business to him and a means of supporting his wife and son.  The moral antitheses are provided by his more sensitive brother, Jared Leto, and an interpol agent who is trying to nail him, played by a smug Ethan Hawke.  I suppose it could be said that Cage gives a powerful performance, but the really scary moral coda is that dealers like him are but a drop in the bucket; the main providers of arms to the world are the seven nations that sit on the UN Security Council!