War Dogs (2016)

There were many shocking and quite unbelievable stories to emerge from the U.S. during the Bush/Cheney administration, but none were quite as fantastical as the overwhelming position 20-something minor-league arms dealers Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz found themselves in. Their tale is utterly preposterous, but entirely true, although events naturally have been dramatised for the film. Like something straight out of a culture-clash comedy from the 1980s, Diveroli and Packouz landed a $298 million Pentagon contract involving over a hundred million rounds of ammunition. The mishandling of the deal and the pair's subsequent falling out was covered in a Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson, and later in a book by Lawson entitled Arms and the Dudes.

David Packouz (Miles Teller) is a pot-smoking massage therapist working in Miami, Florida, dividing his spare time between his girlfriend Iz (Ana de Armas) and trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to flog the high-quality Egyptian bed-sheets that he has invested in to retirement homes. At a funeral, he encounters his old best friend Efraim (Jonah Hill), who has made a success in Los Angeles trading in arms on eBay. They rekindle their friendship, despite Efraim proving himself to be a unpredictable loose-cannon, and David eventually joins his chum at his new business venture AEY. With the war raging in Iraq, the government has set up a website offering contracts for weapons and military equipment. David's job is to pick up the crumbs; those small orders the big companies ignore.

There are, as Efraim informs David, a hell of a lot of crumbs, and the two are soon making their fortunes while Efraim indulges in everything from prostitutes to copious amounts of cocaine. The two grew up loving Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983), and imagery from the film adorns AEY's office walls. The same unquenchable greed that possessed Al Pacino's character seems to drive Efraim also, and it isn't long before you can see the inevitable downfall on the horizon. Director Todd Phillips, on the back of those terrible The Hangover sequels, seems to be intent on making a semi-serious film, and wisely takes inspiration from some of America's great dark-side- of-the-American-dream cinematic works, such as De Palma's aforementioned drug-lord saga and Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990). But, unlike Adam McKay's The Big Short from last year, Phillips doesn't have the nerve to go all the way.

Where McKay exquisitely balanced comedy, drama and satire to dazzling effect, Phillips seems too intent on focusing on the goofball antics of its hapless anti-heroes to deliver any real bite. This is a story that highlights many things from the government's irresponsible approach to warfare, the dangerous practice of allowing just anybody to legally deal in arms, and the devastating effects of blind ambition, but these themes are only touched upon. Packouz is essentially our lead character, but he feels like little more than an exposition tool, with de Armas getting the thankless role of the boring partner who must warn her hubby whenever his actions lead him into the dark side. Thankfully, Jonah Hill is a tour de force, cranking his loathsome character up to 11 without ever feeling unbelievable, proving once again what a versatile actor he is becoming. If you're looking for an intelligent satire of a fascinating recent event, then you probably won't find it here, but as a piece of entertainment, it certainly delivers.

Fmovies: This film tells the story of a message therapist who goes broke because his business venture of selling luxury bed sheets does not work out. He is recruited by his childhood friend to make big money by bidding on military contracts.

"War Dogs" touches on a mysterious aspect of the world which is not often talked about. Therefore, the story is already intriguing, and I want to find out what happens to the two guys. What they do might seem questionable to some, and their subsequent success gives much food for thought. The ending makes you think and reflect on the fine line between right and wrong; and how people can get caught up in their successes. Another god aspect is that despite the subject matter, the story manages to be funny yet still remains dramatic enough to be taken seriously. I enjoyed watching it.

This film is definitely worth the watch. Jonah Hill and Myles Teller both shine superbly in this film, and Bradley Cooper has some genuine mystique about him during his performance. However, this is the second film I have seen this year, that seems to try and recapture the brilliance of Martin Scorcese's 'Wolf of wall street'. What I mean by that is both this film and 'The Big Short' take a complex real life event, that not a whole lot of people fully understood, and made a film that took time to make light of the scenarios, and tried to explain them to the audience in a common way.

This film does it well, and beats 'The Big Short' as it was definitely the easier film to follow. However, it does use a lot of comedy aspects from 'Wold of Wall Street'. You compare Jonah Hill's character Efraim to Donnie his character from TWOWS, they are exactly the same for the first half of this movie. Also, this movie makes light of a very serious real life scenario, and felt to safe considering the context. It's to light hearted and the only real drama or tension comes from the two friends.

On it's own this film is highly re-watchable, and that's down to the lightheartedness, but take a second to stop and think about the real life story, it feels to lighthearted. With Wall Street it worked because all the characters were terrible people, so it was funny to see them mess up. Here, Myles Teller plays a very likable character, and with some of the sinister characters, this film needed to feel more threatening.

However, credit is where credits due, the film did a great job of breaking down how arms dealing works, the same way TWOWS did for stock brokering. and the tone just felt fun, and made it easy to watch. To use wrestling terms, the heel turn seemed a little off, and needed more build, and also just the amount of similarities to TWOWS, from the way they close it out, to Jonah Hill's performance, just the narration by Teller, these films are almost parallel, so that holds this film back from being truly great.

But, the funny thing is, this film works. Hill's performance as both a comedic and dramatic actor is fantastic, he balances the two so well. If you haven't seen TWOWS, your going to love this move a hell of a lot, while the film lacks the risks to make it an instant classic, and is to lighthearted on the seriousness of this real life industry, its still fun and re-watchable, and the script and how this film flows just makes it enjoyable viewing.

I know I have talked long about the lack of originality, but honestly besides that and the lack of tone, or pushing the boundaries, the film does its job well. Hill and Teller have great chemistry, and I could go back and watch this over and over again. The effort to make people aware of this event can not be faulted, and they made arms dealing and the art of war a lot easier to understand that Big Short did for the financial crisis in 08. The sinister tone to end it, was definitely a tonal shift, but I won't spoil it for you here. I'm just going to say, you will have fun, if you're a fan of TWOWS or similar films, or you really enjoy Jonah Hill or Myles Teller, they deliver. I'm giving it a 4/5 stars.

If it pushed the boundaries more, and had more originality I would have given it a 4.5 which I only reserve for great movies. As it is though, it's a re-watchable, fun, well acted, educational film. And you won't even know you're being educated.

War Dogs fmovies. War Dogs

One could sum up this movie in a single word, "formulaic."

If you've ever watched any of the movies about West Coast drug-dealing of the 80s (Blow), or any movie with Benicio Del Toro in it (Snatch, Traffic), you will quickly recognize one or more of the stylistic techniques stamped all over this movie:

• Off-camera narration by one of the protagonists talking about how smart or stupid they were at this point in the adventure.

• Wackiness in the face of danger.

• Celebration of the stoner mentality.

• Overhead shots using helicopters or drones.

• Overuse of circular camera dolly around two subjects quibbling to suggest "tension."

• Cool music.

Oddity

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Choice of music. The setting for the movie is the early 2000s, and these guys are in their 20s, yet the music is a collection golden oldies from 60s. Is that the music the producers like? Is it aimed at the suspected target audience?

Nitpicks

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The lead character says "Bro" more times than any character in any movie in history. Guess that's a refreshing change from "dude." LOL.

Aside from all that, I still liked the movie, just thought is was hackneyed and formulaic.

Director Todd Phillips, mostly famous for The Hangover trilogy, decided to make a military/economic thriller. It sounds as quite a radical change, but after a few seconds, it's clear that War Dogs will employ the absurd and surrealistic humor Phillips is accustomed to work with. The only difference is that War Dogs is based on true events... something which makes it more cynical and disturbing. Miles Teller and Jonah Hill make an excellent work as traders with temperaments which are very different, but well balanced in order to flourish in the unpredictable world of guns trafficking. War Dogs isn't strictly a comedy. There are wide doses of humor, but beneath the laughs, there is a serious anti-war manifest which doesn't only aim at denouncing war in itself, but also the huge political and economic apparatus feeding from the conflict... ie, the death and suffering of uncountable innocents. That isn't a message traditionally expressed with lightness, but co-screenwriters Phillips, Stephen Chin and Jason Smilovic make it work in both the didactic and recreational levels. War Dogs undoubtedly belongs to Teller and Hill, but the supporting cast also makes a perfect work in their roles, highlighting Ana de Armas and the great Kevin Pollak. Some people are comparing War Dogs to The Wolf of Wall Street, but I found it more similar to The Big Short, which examined the economic collapse of Wall Street. Both were made by directors specialized in comedies, and despite dealing with serious themes, their executions employed humor in order to make the hard truths they revealed more accessible. I would consider War Dogs a bit inferior to The Big Short, but it still deserves an enthusiastic recommendation as a fascinating film which leaves us thinking for a long while after we leave the cinema. Each person will know if they stay thinking "How is it possible for things like that to happen?" or "How can I get into that business?".

If you like wolf of wall street, I believe you are gonna like this movie too, even though it not have all the funny moments. The plot is similar a nice guy (Teller) find a way to make money doing stuff located on the line of legal and illegal. The music was well chosen for every scene, acting (specially from Hill and Cooper) was outstanding. On the contrary if you though that Wolf.. didn't show enough all the people who suffer from their actions, and that the movie glorifies bad actions and the eternal search for money, you will not like this movie. It all depends in the end of your personal standards of what can be made fun of, and what subjects are too controversial (in this case, war, guns and arms dealers) to have a good time with.