Watching War Dogs one can’t help but feel like their senses are being hammered into the ground.
The new comedy/drama from director Todd Phillips is a fist-pound of a film that revels in its own dark humour and cynicism while exposes the corruption of the military-industrial complex and international black market arms dealing.
Based on a true story, the film follows 20-something David Packouz (Miles Teller), a message therapist who is reunited with his high school best friend Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) 10 years after their last meeting.
When Packouz finds out his girlfriend Iz (Ana de Armas) is pregnant, he needs money, cue going into business with his friend who happens to be a burgeoning arms dealer.
Eventually the odd couple secures a major $300-million government munitions contract through Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper) to supply American troops and allies in Afghanistan. From there, things go downhill.
Much like Phillips’ previous work in The Hangover, the film gets most of its humour through absurd situations and circumstances, with the film’s manic style channeling Martin Scorcese circa Goodfellas, along with more than a few references to Scarface, in particular from Hill, who incessantly quotes from the cult classic.
Hill is, without doubt, the star of the show as he plays one of the his creepiest characters yet, a cold, economic businessman that comes off as a bombastic physical embodiment of capitalism gone wild. The character is almost without redeeming quality, but it shows Hill’s acting range isn’t only restricted to playing a nutty sidekick like in The Wolf of Wall Street or Superbad.
Teller is supposed to be the moral center of the story, just like Walter White in Breaking Bad, he’s a man who gets involved with bad people to provide for his family at first, but slowly follows his friend down the rabbit hole which leads to their mutual destruction.
Perhaps War Dogs’ greatest strength is that it adheres to the old maxim, “truth is stranger than fiction.” Many of the craziest moments in the film are pulled directly Guy Lawson’s Rolling Stone article and non-fiction book, but that isn’t enough to save the piece from itself.
In the current economic climate, with people uncertain as to what their future situation will be, it’s hard for audiences to feel any sort of sympathy for a couple of men like Packouz and Diveroli who exploited government bureaucracy for profit without concern for people their dealings would effect.
For local screening visit www.cochranemoviehouse.com.
