Review of War Dogs (2016) by Patrick L — 29 Jan 2017

"I'm concerned about the state of America but director Todd Phillips has only crafted a shallow mess.".

Movie Review: War Dogs.

Date Viewed: August 20 2016.

Directed By Todd Phillips (Due Date, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, The Hangover, The Hangover Part II and The Hangover Part III).

Screenplay By Stephen Chin, Todd Phillips and Jason Smilovie.

Based on the Rolling Stone article "Arms and the Dudes" by Guy Lawson.

Starring: Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Ana de Armas, J.B. Blanc, Bradley Cooper, Barry Livingston, Kevin Pollak and Eddie Jemison.

With his "Hangover" trilogy finally over, director Todd Phillips (The Hangover, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, Due Date) can finally move on to projects that suit him well. The bad news about his new film "War Dogs" is that it's another story pursuing the American Dream. Based on a true story, the movie is about two 20-something guys who get in the arms dealing business and make lots of dough. Of course in every American Dream, there will always be consequences for the people who try to pursue it.

Todd Phillips does everything he can to make this "Pain & Gain" rip-off an involving war comedy but instead of behaving like normal gentlemen, our main leads behave like they don't give a f$&@! and "War Dogs" does very little to implicate the Bush/Cheney administration for their fatal errors in Iraq. Set in 2005 during the Iraq war, David Packouz (Miles Teller) was nothing more than a massage therapist in Miami Beach until he came across his old high school friend, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill).

Even though they are in their early 20s, Efraim offers David a huge job opportunity, exploit a little government initiative and become big-time arms traffickers. David and his pregnant girlfriend, Iz (Ana de Armas) are strongly opposed to the Iraq war but the reason he is going to the Middle East is because he wants to clean up all his debts and live in a better environment for his child.

As David and Efraim rank in big money, partake in wild and zany antics and enjoy living the high life, they are suddenly offered a $300 million dollar contract from the Pentagon to arm the Afghan military. David and Efraim are then sent to Las Vegas for a military convention where they encounter a shady arms dealer named Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper). David thinks that they have gone too deep but Efraim is like "Come On! What Were Doing Is Not Illegal!". Um... Actually it is. As they go deeper into the shady arms business, so does their friendship as trust issues collide between the two schemers.

This premise would've been interesting if the filmmakers have removed the "Pursuing the American Dream" aspect of "War Dogs" but clearly this movie wants to be "American Hustle" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" but "War Dogs" is not as great or wildly compelling as those movies. Originally, the movie's title was "Arms and the Dudes" but the studio decided to changed it to "War Dogs" because they thought it would be more bad-ass than "Arms and the Dudes". The first title would've been better because "War Dogs" looks like a title for a direct-to-video action flick starring Dolph Lundgren.

Jonah Hill and Miles Teller do what they can with their characters but their depictions of Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz are just a sad commentary on what are current schemers are doing today in America. I'm concerned about the state of America as well but director Todd Phillips has only crafted a shallow mess.