North Country, Lord of War

Charlize Theron faces harassment and intimidation trying to be accepted as a miner in North Country.

North Country Herald rating: * * * *
Lord of War Herald rating: * * * *

When I began this column some years ago, who'd have guessed I'd end it with two films starring the biggest names on the Hollywood A-list - both movies made by Kiwis.

Nikki Caro's Whale Rider was one of the most inspirational movies of recent years, and her LA debut is similarly uplifting, if a tad overwrought, and Andrew Niccol, who few realised was a Kiwi at the time of Gattaca but was acclaimed for The Truman Show, joins Nicolas Cage in confronting the dirty side of modern politics.

Caro's movie is in Erin Brokovich mode, inspired by Lois Jenson, who filed the first US lawsuit for sexual harassment.

Charlize Theron plays Josey Aimes, who walks out on her abusive boyfriend. She goes home to Minnesota and gets a poorly paid hairdressing job. As there's more money in the mines, Josie goes in the pits.

Her father Hank (Richard Jenkins) thinks it's not "women's work" and she is taking a job from a family man. The townswomen believe there's something wrong with her, she can't find a man to take care of her. The miners scorn, belittle, abuse her.

And not just the men. Glory (Frances McDormand), the only women on the union committee, can play the good ol' boy or the tough guy to get her way. Other women miners put up with obscenity and harassment but keep their heads down.

Pushed beyond her limits, Josey looks for justice. Her only support is a lawyer (Woody Harrelson), who takes up her case to make his name.

Caro didn't have to look too far for a soundtrack. She uses songs from a local singer-songwriter, Robert Allen Zimmerman, of Hibbing, Minnesota. Until he moved to New York and changed his name to Bob Dylan.

Regrettably the DVD's only feature is Stories from the North Country, conversations with the women who inspired the film.

Played as a black - or perhaps bleak - comedy, Lord of War features Cage as Yuri, who has escaped from Ukraine to make his fortune in America. He lives with Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan), former supermodel, in a Manhattan penthouse. He tells her he has made his money in shipping, but Yuri is an arms dealer who believes wars will be fought whether or not he is providing the tools, so he might as well be the one getting rich.

He will sell to anyone except Osama bin Laden - because "he was always bouncing cheques". His clients come from Bosnia and Africa, where he services the Liberian dictator Baptiste Senior (Eamonn Walker) and his son Baptiste Junior (Sammi Rotibi). His only problems come when peace talks break out, but there's always another conflict.

His nemesis is an Interpol agent Valentine (Ethan Hawke), who has an idealistic streak and naively thinks that putting Yuri into receivership would save lives.

On the DVD, Niccol's commentary touches on the politics of Hollywood. None of the major studios wanted to touch the flick and it's obvious that, if Cage hadn't backed it, the movie would not have been made.

There are 10 deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews and a 20-minute making-of in which Niccol tells of buying real Kalashnikovs because they were cheaper and easier to source than fakes. Finally a doco, Making A Killing, talks of America's duplicity in selling weapons to both sides: its military and their enemies.

* DVD, video rental out now