Say what you will about Buffalo Springfield's folk-rock anthem "For What It's Worth," but even back in 1967 its message wasn't exactly what you'd call subtle. In the years since, the song has become ubiquitous, covered by everyone from Rush to the Muppets, used to shill Miller Beer, and eventually embalmed as a ready-made signifier of questioning the status quo (specifically its perpetuation of all things war-like).

It's nice that the song still generates enough royalties to support Stephen Stills' various ex-wives, but do we really need to hear it yet again over the opening credits of Lord of War? Does Andrew Niccol, a smart filmmaker whose credits include Gattaca and The Truman Show, actually think he can beat this dead horse into somehow magically giving up a fresh insight or two?

The sad truth is that the song might be just what the movie deserves. There's a lot of stylish hubris but little that's particularly original about Lord of War, Niccol's epic about the rise and fall of an international gun runner. The movie spans two decades in the life of Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), an ambitious anti-hero who exploits humankind's urge to kill as a means of transforming himself from lowly immigrants' son into a man of enormous wealth and power. It's a perversion of the American dream we've seen innumerable variations of on screen, and the one trotted out here differs only in its details and in the global implications of its story.

Lord of War begins in the early '80s, following Yuri as he makes his way up the food chain of the arms smuggling biz, becoming a smooth operator dealing in death, navigating the war zones of the world, immaculate in suit and tie no matter how gnarly his surroundings. Yuri's compulsively chatty voice-over accompanies the proceedings, running more or less constantly throughout the film, offering glib commentary while making sporadic attempts at justifying a life above politics and morality. This is, after all, somebody who casually tells us he would have gladly sold weapons to Bin Laden if only the guy wasn't such a notorious check-bouncer.

The non-stop narration doesn't leave much to the imagination, but Lord of War's biggest problem is that it never finds the right tone for its story. Cage's bizarrely exaggerated performance ranks among his most maddeningly self-conscious and ingratiating, while the movie veers erratically from gritty realism to unconvincing, overheated melodrama to tongue-in-cheek farce, with a stop or two in between for some Scarface-esque excess. There are hackneyed shots of guns and money looking as cozy together as ham and cheese, and when the characters aren't blowing someone away or being blown away, they're prone to sophomoric soul-searching of the clumsiest kind.

There's a certain pleasure to be had watching something so brazenly full of itself, but Lord of War hedges its bets in ways not so easy to forgive. Cage's character does very bad things but the movie wants to humanize him, and so it endows him with a conflicted conscience (he apparently prefers that people who buy his guns not use them to kill), and also gives him a family to love. Yuri's inner turmoil seems like a screenwriter's afterthought, though, and his wife and child are barely set decorations, human props who briefly appear every so often just to remind us they exist. Ditto for a coked-up brother (Jared Leto), who pops up now and then to mouth corny dialogue about being devoured by the beast inside.

When Lord of War finally lets loose in its closing moments and allows itself to passionately rail against the proliferation of weapons, the film is both eloquent and powerful. Up until then, though, it's hard to tell what we're supposed to make of Niccol's movie. Is he asking us to take this material seriously, or crafting some postmodern cartoon that takes the piss out of clichés by making them even more ridiculous? It's hard to shake the feeling that Niccol wants it both ways, resulting in a film simultaneously traveling in two mutually exclusive directions.

This is the sort of movie where, when someone tells us, "I'm the luckiest man alive" right before stepping into a car, it's a sure thing that car will blow up. The only thing uncertain is whether the scene is supposed to shock or amuse us. As it turns out, all it does is make us wonder what it was that we were supposed to be feeling.

Independent-Minded Activity

More than 150 films were submitted to this year's Independents' Film Festival, and the cream of the crop will be on display when the fest rolls into town this weekend. As always, local filmmakers are the primary focus of IFF, but there's also work included from Africa, Ireland, Spain, France and elsewhere, and you can see it all at the Sept. 16 Best of Fest event at Tampa Theatre. An awards ceremony kicks things off at 7 p.m., followed by screenings of over a dozen winners in categories that include drama, documentary, animation and experimental.

The IFF weekend continues on Saturday, Sept. 17 with the Junior Independents' Film Festival, beginning at noon at Sunrise Cinemas in Old Hyde Park. Awards will be presented and movies screened from student filmmakers, grades kindergarten through 12, followed by a Q&A with the budding artistes.

At 2 p.m., the action moves over to the studios of The Education Channel (IFF organizers and prime movers) with a free workshop called "Sound for Filmmakers." The featured speaker will be Mike Barnitt, whose 30-year career as a sound recordist includes films such as Edward Scissorhands, Cop and a Half and Gibtown.

The weekend concludes at 4 p.m. on Sept. 17 with a "Meet the Makers" panel discussion at the Education Channel. Film curator extraordinaire Margaret Murray will moderate the event and several award-winning IFF filmmakers will be on hand to tell you everything you ever wanted to know (well, lots, anyway) about making an independent movie.

All of these events are free and open to the public, with the exception of the Best of Fest event. Best of Fest admission is $6, and tickets are available at the Tampa Theatre box office or through Ticketmaster. The Education Channel is located at 703 N. Willow Ave. in Tampa. For more information call 813-254-2253, ext. 304, or check the website at www.independentsfilmfest.com.

This article appears in Sep 14-20, 2005.