Whats the real story behind Lord of War?

Question

I say the ending "based on a trueevents" and I was wondering what those events were. Provide links plz.

Answer 1

The movie Lord of War is based on the life of Leonid Minin, with some details changed. Minin was actualy arrested by Interpol in Italy, and did face trail, but was released by the Italian court (he was arested with 4 hookers, 58 grams of coke, half a million dollars in Liberian diamonds, and hundreds of documents proving he violated internation arms embargoes, but the court decided there was no evidence against him). Also lived in Israel, not America (remember at the start of the film, Cage saying his family was pretending to be jewish to escape the USSR).

I haven't been able to find a single good article on Leonid Minin, you'd be best off just googling his name.

On a side note, the president of Liberia in the film is based (very acurately) on Charles Taylor.

Answer 2

Sorry, no links. Try Imbd.com. The things I remember that are "true" are:
1. Cage's character Yuri is a composite of five(or so) real life arms dealers.
2. The scene where there is a long row of tanks. Those tanks belonged to a real arms dealer in eastern Europe.
3. It was cheaper for the producers to buy real AK-47s from the arms dealers they met for the movie then to rent/buy fake ones from a Hollywood prop shop.