From director Todd Phillips (“The Hangover” trilogy) comes “War Dogs,” a comedic drama based on true events, starring Oscar nominee Jonah Hill (“The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Moneyball”) and Miles Teller (“Whiplash,” the “Divergent” trilogy).
Imagine being in your early 20s and getting approached by your childhood best friend to do business. This is what happened with David Packouz (Miles Teller) while attending a funeral. While conversing with a friend he sees Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) off in the distance, his best friend while growing up. Once Efraim explains to David how he was making money selling guns in San Diego and the ease of it all, David becomes intrigued and wants to learn more.
Once he officially signs on as a partner with Efraim, a series of events take place that immediately affect David and eventually changes their lives.
As arms dealers under the name AEY, the new duo set forth on a massive search, scouring the gov’t web portal for contract jobs. Efraim’s specialty was finding the smaller jobs that people often look over for the bigger ones. While most companies would go for the $100 million jobs, AEY focused on what Efraim called “crumbs,” which were the jobs that offered a million here and there.
Bradley Cooper (“American Sniper,” “American Hustle,”) plays Henry Girard, a legendary arms dealer who allegedly was part of Saddam Hussein’s death. The ever longing desire for more money led the guys of AEY to Henry Girard for the deal of a lifetime. But greed comes with a price, and in this case, the price was far too high for the boys to handle.
If your opinion has been formed solely from hearsay and short clips on TV, you’d think this was just some skimp comedy where Jonah Hill entertains for two hours. Not only is that incorrect, but the film is based on a true story with an ending you have to see to believe.
You see a bit of Gordon Gecko (“The Wolf of Wall Street”) in Ephraim in this film and there are constant referrals to “Scarface” throughout. This film, like the two aforementioned, have an all too familiar theme: Greed and arrogance leads to their downfall.
“War Dogs” gets a 7 out of 10. The film relies heavily on the shock-and-awe in the storyline and often times Hill has to carry the scenes, which he can’t always do. While I don’t have a problem with Miles Teller, his character is such a non-factor in this movie that literally anybody could’ve played his role.
-Jon J.