Talk:Lord of War/GA1

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Reviewer: TompaDompa (talk · contribs) 01:10, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

General comments

• The article could in general do with a thorough copyediting to improve prose quality, particularly in the "Plot" section. The
  WT:FILM
  .
• The article relies fairly heavily on interviews and the "making of" documentary. Articles should ideally use sources further removed from the subject than that.
• Apart from the "Critical reception" subsection, the article is rather thin.
• The structure is a bit unintuitive to me at times. I might suggest turning to
  MOS:FILM
  ).

Lead

• The budget in the infobox is unsourced.
• Taking place in the early 1980s – the film takes place over a much longer stretch of time than that. The dissolution of the Soviet Union is a major plot point.
• Securing funding for the film was difficult as it was pitched shortly before the
  WP:LEAD
  .
• Review aggregators Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of over 62%, indicating "generally favorable reviews" – this is not correct. Neither gave it over 62%. The Rotten Tomatoes score is 62%, and the Metacritic score is 62 out of 100 (not strictly speaking a percentage). The "generally favorable reviews" part only applies to Metacritic.
• The Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and Cinemascore ratings are rather dubious to include in the lead.
• WP:WikiVoice
  (that is to say, this phrasing results in Wikipedia agreeing with Amnesty rather than just reporting what they said). This recurs in the body.
• There are five paragraphs in the lead, two of which are single-sentence paragraphs.

Plot

• This section is rather heavy on links. Not all of them are necessary.
• Ava follows him one day, unaware that Interpol is following her, and they both discover the shipping container that holds his arms-dealing office. – "they both"? Ava is a person whereas Interpol is an organization.

Production

• The idea for Lord of War originated prior to 2004 when an agent of the Creative Artists Agency gave Philippe Rousselet the script – surely the starting point should be the writing of the script?
• The idea for Lord of War originated prior to 2004 when an agent of the Creative Artists Agency gave Philippe Rousselet the script – this is the first time Rousselet is mentioned after the lead. The reader should be informed who he is (and the name should be linked).
• The idea for Lord of War originated prior to 2004 when an agent of the Creative Artists Agency gave Philippe Rousselet the script – this wording is ambiguous. Is it "originated prior to [2004 when an agent] [...]" or "originated [prior to 2004] when an agent [...]"? In other words, was the script given to Rousselet in 2004 or prior to 2004 (the rest of the paragraph makes it clear that it has to be the latter as it was before the start of the Iraq War, which began in 2003, but the reader shouldn't have to do the mental legwork of figuring that out).
• but could not find an American studio that would take it on, as it was right before the beginning of the Iraq War – should probably explain why that made them unwilling to do so.
• An additional setback was that scenes in the script were written to occur in up to 13 different countries – that's not a setback; a setback is unexpected. I might describe it as a complicating factor, perhaps.
• as the expected expenses increased, Section 48 laws disqualified the film from making use of it – I'm going to go out on a limb and say most readers will not be sufficiently familiar with the relevant laws to understand what this means.
• As with Rousselet, Amir Mokri should be introduced and linked at first mention.
• Amir Mokri made it a point to have the camera move as Yuri moved, in reference to Yuri's constant travelling as an arms dealer. – this is interesting, but it seems a bit out of place in this section and shouldn't have an entire separate paragraph devoted to it.
• The "Yuri Orlov inspiration" subsection seems a bit out of place here.
• Using a photograph of a living person in handcuffs should probably be avoided when there are other options available.
• WP:BLP
  material, or any kind of analysis.
• In 2015, the National Security Archive reported that Yuri was primarily based on Sarkis Soghanalian, an Armenian-Lebanese arms dealer. – what the source says is "he was an inspiration for Nicholas Cage's character Yuri Orlov in the 2005 film, Lord of War", a significantly weaker statement.