Lord Of War

There are over 550 million firearms

in world-wide circulation.

That's one firearm for every

twelve people on the planet.

The only question is...

how do we arm the other eleven?

You don't have to worry.

I'm not gonna tell you a pack of

lies to make me look good.

I'm just gonna tell you

what happened.

My name is Yuri Orlov.

When I was a boy,

my family came to America.

But not all the way.

Like most Ukrainians,

we gathered in Brighton Beach.

It reminded us of the Black Sea.

I soon realized we'd just swapped

one hell for another.

Even in hell, an angel

sometimes makes an appearance.

I'd worshipped Ava Fontaine

since I was 10 years old.

Of course, she didn't know I existed.

I was starting to think she had a point.

For the first twenty-odd years of my life...

...Little Odessa was to me what it

is to the Q train...

...the end of the line.

"Little Odessa," New York - 1982

Oh, I did lie about my name.

It's not really Yuri Orlov.

There've been few occasions

in the in the 20th century...

when it's been an advantage be a Jew.

But in the 'seventies,

to escape the Soviet Union,

our family pretended to be Jewish.

Little about my life has been

kosher ever since

How's it going, brother?

It's not.

That's Vitaly, my younger brother.

He was as lost as me.

He didn't know it yet.

Yuri,

you're late.

My father took his assumed

identity to heart.

He was more Jewish than most Jews.

Which drove my Catholic mother crazy.

How many times?

I can't eat shellfish.

It's treyf.

You're not Jewish.

I like it.

I like the hat.

To remind us there is something...

above us.

I like that.

I'm going to temple.

You're not going to temple.

You go to temple more than the rabbi.

Get off my back, woman.

God, will you ever wise up?

Yuri, don't forget to check

the specials at the Palace.

Growing up in Little Odessa,

murder was everyday part of life.

Russian mobsters had also

migrated

from the Soviet Union

and when they came to America,

their baggage came with them.

There was always some gangster

getting whacked in my

neighborhood,

but I'd never seen it with my own eyes.

I had this knack of showing up

five minutes before something went down,

or five minutes after.

Not that day.

It hit me.

It couldn't have hit me harder

if I was the one who'd been shot.

You go into the restaurant business...

because people are always going

to have to eat.

That was the day I realized my destiny...

...lay in fulfilling another basic

human need.

The next Sabbath,

I went to temple with my father.

However, it wasn't God

I was trying to get close to.

Eli, my eldest son, Yuri.

My contact at synagogue landed me

my first Israeli-made Uzi

submachine guns.

The first time you sell a gun...

is a lot like the first time you have sex.

You have absolutely no idea

what you're doing.

But it is exciting and one way

or another,

it's over way too fast.

Gentlemen.

The new Uzi machine pistol.

Big firepower in a small package.

This little baby uses 9 mm hollow points.

Twenty twenty-five round extendable mags...

...rear-flip adjustable sights.

Silencer comes standard.

Excellent recoil reduction.

Muzzle jump reduced forty percent.

Sixty percent improved noise

suppression.

You could pump a mag into me

right now

and never wake the guy

in the next room.

Of course, that would eliminate your

opportunity for repeat business.

I did have a natural instinct

for smuggling contraband.

Fortunately, back then a video camera

was a big as a bazooka

Here I'd been running away from violence

my whole life, and I should've

run towards it.

It's in our nature.

The earliest human skeletons had

spearheads in their rib cages.

Where have you been?

What if we had a customer?

God bless America.

Beware of the dog?

You don't have a dog.

Are you trying to scare people?

No, it's to scare me.

Remind me to be aware of the dog in me.

The dog wants to f*** everything

that moves

Wants to fight and kill weaker dogs.

I guess it's to remind me to be

more human.

Isn't being a dog part of being human?

What if that's the best part of you?

The dog part.

What if you're really just a

two-legged dog?

You need to see somebody.

Stinks in here.

I'd always wanted to do something

big with my life

I just didn't know what.

Anyhow, I figured,

if I was going into the gun trade,

I was going aim high.

Vitaly, stop f***ing around.

I want to talk to you.

You read the newspapers, Vit?

Newspaper? It's always the same.

You're right.

Every day there's people shooting

each other.

You know what I do when I see that?

I look to see what guns they're using

and I think to myself, why not my guns?

What, are you opening a gun shop?

Already more of those in than

McDonald's.

Even with all the gangsters around here,

the margins are too low.

You've figured the margins?

Sure.

Forget gang wars.

The real money is in actual wars.

Between countries.

Yuri, what the f*** do you know

about guns?

I know which end I'd rather be on.

I made the first sale.

We're already in business.

Whoa, whoa. We?

I need a partner.

I don't know,

I don't know, Yuri. I don't know.

Vitaly, I've tasted your borscht.

You're no f***ing chef.

I can eat in the restaurant for free

and I still don't eat there.

F*** you.

We're doing nothing with our lives.

I mean, this is sh*t!

This is sh*t!

It's true.

But maybe doing nothing's

better than doing this.

I need you.

Brothers in arms.

Brothers in arms.

Sir, may I interest you in the

shoulder-fired SA-7

surface-to-air missiles?

The older Chinese model.

Not so effective against

modern military aircraft. But deadly...

if used against a commercial airliner.

I'm giving them away at 8-50.

In the '80s, and the Cold War was

far from thawed

Most of the deals were

government-to-government.

It was a mostly private club...

...with a lifetime club president.

That's him.

The big shot?

Simeon Weisz, Angola,

Mozambique,

those Exocet missiles

in the Falklands.

He was selling guns before

there was gunpowder.

Be right back.

Mr. Weisz? Mr. Weisz!

It's okay, they're talking.

May I help?

A mutual friend, Eli Kurtzman

from Brighton Beach,

import/export said to contact you.

I have a business proposal

and I thought perhaps we could

discuss it.

I don't think you and I are

in the same business.

You think I just sell guns,

don't you?

I don't. I take sides.

But in the Iran-Iraq war

you sold guns to both sides.

Did you ever consider that

I wanted both sides to lose?

Bullets change governments far

surer than votes.

You're in the wrong place,

my young friend.

This is no place for amateurs.

Motherf***er.

Curious how you always revert to

your native tongue

in moments of extreme anger.

And ecstasy.

Oh God... Oh, God!

You are beautiful.

What's your name again?

The only option for Vitaly and me

was under-the-counter gunrunning.

Beirut, Lebanon - 1984

I got my first break in Lebanon

after the suicide bombing.

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