Trailer for The Notorious Mr. Bout.
Though vilified by the media as “the merchant of death” and immortalized by Nicolas Cage in the action-thriller Lord of War, Viktor Bout claims he’s just a businessman. True, he built his empire selling weapons to some of the world’s most violent regimes—but as this amazingly intimate exposé reveals, the infamous arms dealer is more of an amateur filmmaker than a cold-hearted opportunist. Now, with unprecedented access to the subject’s home movies, his wife and a raft of former “partners,” award-winning filmmakers Tony Gerber (Full Battle Rattle) and Maxim Pozdorovkin (Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer) chip away at the Bout mythology. Could this family man so keen on camcorders and house parties really be the iron fist the world so easily condemned? Funny and deftly subversive, this revealing portrait navigates the muddy waters of profit and personal responsibility.