Lord of War (2005)

Ethan Hawke: Jack Valentine

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jack Valentine : [in the middle of the desert with an empty plane nearby]  Do you know why I do what I do? I mean, there are more prestigeous assignments. Keeping track of nuclear arsenels - you'd think that be more critical to world security. But it's not. No, nine out of ten war victims today are killed with assault rifles and small arms - like yours. Those nuclear weapons sit in their silos. Your AK-47, that's the real weapon of mass destruction.

  Yuri Orlov : [sitting on a small wooden crate]  I don't want people dead, Agent Valentine. I don't put a gun to anybody's head and make them shoot. But shooting is better for business. But, I prefer people to fire my guns and miss. Just as long as they are firing. Can I go now?

• Jack Valentine : I don't think you appreciate the seriousness of your situation.

  Yuri Orlov : My family has disowned me. My wife and son have left me. My brother's dead. Trust me, I fully appreciate the seriousness of my situation. And I promise you, I won't spend a single second in a court room.

  Jack Valentine : You're delusional.

  Yuri Orlov : I like you, Jack. Well, maybe not, but I understand you. Let me tell you what's gonna happen. This way you can prepare yourself.

  Jack Valentine : Okay...

  Yuri Orlov : Soon there's going to be a knock on that door and you will be called outside. In the hall there will be a man who out-ranks you. First he'll compliment you on the fine job you've done - on you making the world a safer place. That you're to receive a commendation or a promotion. And then he's going to tell you that I am to be released. You're going to protest. You'll probably threaten to resign. But in the end, I *will* be released. The reason I'll be released is the same reason you think I'll be convicted. I do rub shoulders with some of the most vile, sadistic men calling themselves leaders today. But some of those men

  [pointing at newspaper articles] 

  Yuri Orlov : are the enemies of your enemies. And while the biggest arms dealer in the world is your boss, the President of the United States, who ships more merchandise in a day than I do in a year, sometimes it's embarrassing to have his fingerprints on the guns. Sometimes he needs a freelancer like me to supply forces he can't be seen supplying. So, *you* call me evil, but unfortunately for you, I'm a necessary evil.

  [knock at the door] 

  Jack Valentine : I'd tell you to go to hell, but I think you're already there.

• Yuri Orlov : [in an interrogation room]  Enjoy it.

  Jack Valentine : What?

  Yuri Orlov : This. Tell me I'm everything you despise. That I'm the personification of evil. That I'm what- responsible for the breakdown of the fabric of society and world order. I'm a one-man genocide. Say everything you want to say to me now. Because you don't have long.

• Jack Valentine : Since you're so concerned with the law, you must know that I am legally permitted to hold you for 24 hours without charging you. You might ask why I would do that, and I can assure you it's not because I enjoy your company, because I don't. No. The reason why I will delay you for every second of the permissible 24 hours is I'm delaying your deadly trade and the deaths of your victims. I don't think of it as taking a day away from you, but giving a day to them. Some innocent man, woman or child is going to have an extra day on this Earth because you're not free. So I will see you in... 23 hours and 55 minutes.

• Jack Valentine : [to Yuri, in an interrogation room]  I would tell you to go to hell, but I think you're already there.

• Jack Valentine : [eavesdropping on Yuri with other Interpol officers in a surveillance vehicle]  He must be lying... He's talking.

• Jack Valentine : Have you seen today's paper?

  [Yuri looks at the paper headlined MERCHANT OF DEATH IN CUSTODY as Agent Valentine gives an inventory of Yuri's crimes] 

  Jack Valentine : Fake end-user certificates. Cut-out companies meticulously catalogued. There is hardly a warlord, dictator, despot anywhere in the world you're not on a first-name basis with.

• Ava Fontaine : [while sitting in her living room]  I don't believe you, can you prove any of this?

  Jack Valentine : Your husband goes through a lot of trouble to make his business look legitimate perhaps especially to you. I don't expect we're going to find anything here today

  Ava Fontaine : So what'd you want?

  Jack Valentine : I was hoping you'd help me. I understand your parents died tragically, the illegal fire arms that were used to kill your mother and father were procured from men exactly like your husband.

• Jack Valentine : [to Yuri in an interrogation room]  You have broken every arms embargo written there's enough evidence to put you away for consecutive life sentences you're going to spend the next ten years of your life going from a cell to a courtroom before you even start serving your time.

• Mbizi : [to Jack Valentine, holding a machete to Yuri's neck, while restraining his arms]  Can we make him disappear? Around here people disappear all the time

  Jack Valentine : No, don't do it

  Mbizi : Look where we are, who will know?

  Jack Valentine : We will, his going to get what's coming to him

  Jack Valentine : [to Yuri]  what are you doing in Sierra Leone?

  Yuri Orlov : [lying]  I'm on safari

  Jack Valentine : [amused]  Oh really? You're hunting wildebeest with a Submachine gun?

  Yuri Orlov : You also work with the park service? Hunting without a license? Is that the charge?

  Jack Valentine : Why are we playing games? You traffic arms

  Yuri Orlov : [protesting his innocence]  Trade

  Jack Valentine : Trade, traffic you get rich by giving the poorest people on the planet the means to killing each other

• Yuri Orlov : [Referring to Jack Valentine and other Interpol agents]  I thought you were watching out for these people?

  General Dmitri : How can I? You keep selling my helicopters you're too greedy. I can't hold him forever

  Yuri Orlov : I've got paperwork

  General Dmitri : Not for the gun ships, selling military helicopters is a major violation

  Yuri Orlov : Military helicopter, it's not a military helicopter, it's a "rescue" helicopter, the law is on our side

  Jack Valentine : You're always in the wrong place at the right time we've met before off the coast of Colombia what was the name of that freighter "Kono" or Kristol?

  Yuri Orlov : The crew called that vessel a lot of names

  Jack Valentine : I need to see your papers

  [reading the documents] 

  Jack Valentine : you type this up yourself?

  Yuri Orlov : The helicopter is to be used on humanitarian missions

  Jack Valentine : So you're a humanitarian?

  Yuri Orlov : Absolutely

  Jack Valentine : This is a military aircraft

  Yuri Orlov : Not anymore, what can they do with military hardware but convert it into civilian use

  Jack Valentine : [pulling him over to show him the guided missiles on the floor]  And this stuff over here?

  Yuri Orlov : [Pointing to a document attached to the guided missiles]  That's going to a different client at a different address

  Jack Valentine : So that's just a coincidence is that it? Do you take me for a complete fucking fool?

  Yuri Orlov : Not complete, while I hesitate to tell you your job I must point out when shipped separately the weapons and aircraft comply with the current Interpol trade standards and practices

  Jack Valentine : We both that is an obscene bureaucratic loophole that's going to be closed any God damn day

  Yuri Orlov : But it's not closed and there are men like you who respect the rule of law

• Jack Valentine : [showing Yuri a bullet found inside Vitaly's body during his autopsy, while in an interrogation room]  curiously, your brother's death certificate said he died of heart failure

  Yuri Orlov : [sitting down at a metal table, referring to not be charged and prosecuted for a misdemeanor]  Falsifying a death certificate? That's not going to hold me

  Jack Valentine : You're right as usual you are right, it was your wife, your trophy wife that led us to the prize. It's not her fault she's just easier to follow than you are.