But it turns out he doesn’t really need to worry; as much as it resembles other recent movies (especially Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain and Adam McKay’s The Big Short), War Dogs stands pretty well on its own, deploying just enough comedy to entice the audience while treating the true story it’s based on with appropriate seriousness.
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“The choice of that lifestyle has worn its welcome on his body”, Cooper said of his character. “And I saw Todd at a restaurant like a couple of months after that and I said, ‘Hey man, what’s up with Arms and the Dudes?”.
Phillips also directed Cooper in “The Hangover“, a movie that would appear on the surface very different from “War Dogs”.
The 29-year-old actor stars with Jonah Hill, 32, in the new movie about two 20-something stoners who won a $300 million contract with the Pentagon to supply USA allies with arms in Afghanistan and Miles says his father encouraged him to take the role because of his past. “And, you know, a little bit of greed gets in the way of good decision making”. “Which all my movies seem to be about”.
The unbelievable story gained major attention after Guy Lawson wrote a detailed Rolling Stone article about “the dudes”, or more affectionately known as the “stoner arms dealers,” and subsequently adapted their fable into a book titled Arms and the Dudes.
“War Dogs”, out in theaters on August 18, is a dramedy inspired by two young men, played by Hill and Miles Teller, living in Miami Beach during the Iraq War who exploit a little-known government initiative that allowed small businesses to bid on US military contracts.
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To make his casting even more special, Teller admits he wasn’t even on filmmaker Todd’s mind while the director was first crafting the vision for War Dogs.
