War Dogs

There are films based on true stories, then there are films based on extremely over-the-top, difficult to believe true stories. You've seen them-- "Pain & Gain" '13, "The Wolf on Wall Street" '14 and the like. Somehow it seems if the audience isn't stimulated, the film won't capture box office bucks, so Hollywood has given us, yet, another one of those wild and crazy films based on a true story in the form of "War Dogs".

This story based on true events back in 2005 which centers on two friends in their early 20's, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) and David Packouz (Miles Teller) living in Miami Beach during the Iraq War exploit. This is a little-known government initiative that allows small businesses to bid on U.S. Military contracts. So Diveroli and Packouz start a business in order to apply for these contracts. Starting small, they begin raking in big money and are living the high life. But the pair gets in over their heads when they land a 300 million dollar deal to arm the Afghan Military-- a deal that puts them in business with some very shady people including Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper) and not the least of which turns out to be the U.S. Government.

Others to round out the cast are JB Blanc as Bashkim, Ana de Armas as Iz, Packouz's wife, Shaun Toub as Marlboro, a guide, Kevin Pollak as Ralph Slutzky, a silent partner of AEY, inc., the name of Diveroli and Packouz's company, Patrick St. Esprit as Captain Philip Santos, Jeremy Tardy as Kip, an interpreter and Julian Sergi as Rosen.

This was directed by Todd Phillips ("Road Trip" 2000, "Old School" '03, "Starsky & Hutch" '04, "School for Scoundrels" '06, "The Hangover" '09, "The Hangover II" '11, "The Hangover III" '13) plus documentaries. This filmmaker usually has two different types of emotions in his films-- over-the-top and subdued, probably because the two are so extremely different which can make for a different brew of humor. He succeeds tenfold in this and puts him on the map as an effective director. It was written by Stephen Chin, Phillips and Jason Smilovic based on the Rolling Stone article "Arms and the Dudes" by Guy Lawson. With the exception of Phillips, the other two writers only have one theatrical film each to their credit for experience and I'm afraid the outcome of this movie shows that. As with other films of this type, it starts off with a promising premise, and then slowly ends up circling the drain. What actually helped this was the fact that it wasn't necessarily a comedy, but a drama with comedic parts shoved into it. If this was totally a comedy, my forgiveness would've been absent, however since it was written as a dramedy, there's more forgiveness of the script. The silver-lining of this film was that of Bradley Cooper's Henry Girard character. That deadpan comedic approach that Cooper can do so well is what really made this story tolerable. Both Teller and Hill have done better projects than this, so it makes me wonder why they felt they had to stoop so low as to act in this film.

Again, this had an intriguing premise in which to work-- where the truth is stranger than fiction, but then got bogged down with having to focus too much on drugs, four-letter words and crassness to such a gratuitous state that it came to a point that it was actually tough to feel sorry for either of these guys, especially Diveroti. If one likes this sort of fare, enjoy, however if you want a more sophisticated plot and dialogue, I'd pass on this one.

Out of 4 Stars: 2                                Rated: R                                  114mins.