The Notorious Mr. Bout

The controversial career of arms trader Viktor Bout was fictionalised in 2005’s Lord Of War, but truth trumps fiction in Tony Gerber and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s enthralling doc. Centred on Bout’s snare and trial by America, the directors dare to brood over how villainous this “merchant of death” was. Such sympathy attracts access… but also to hours of incriminating video shot by Bout himself, oblivious to being the terrible guy.

As ironies rebound betweenBout’s entrepreneurial image and the stark consequences of his work, a enigmatically comic and illuminating portrait of moral bankruptcy emerges.