The otherwise spectacular Oscar Isaac looked awkward and out-of-sorts as the blue-faced supervillain at the heart of X-Men Apocalypse. “All the money is made between the lines”, Efraim says. In tried-and-true freeze frame voice-overs (a technique lifted, as a great many things are in this film, from Scorsese), we meet the kid as he’s just getting started, working as a licensed masseuse in Miami Beach and going nowhere in particular. But then, that’s what makes him such a menace – his Miami gun runner is self-confident, fearless, charismatic, and worryingly lacking morals or anything resembling a conscience.
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“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.
David (Teller) is a disgruntled American massage therapist overburdened with the news of a pregnant girlfriend Iz (De Armas).
In this case, that third party ends up being Efraim and David, who suddenly stand to make a fortune if they can buy from Henry, sell to the Pentagon, and somehow stay alive while doing so. And, as it turns out, asking the question and correcting Efraim’s mistake get him fired. There is an underbelly to it where a lot of people make a lot of money and these two guys are just trying to get in on that.
So it is that David becomes Efraim’s business partner, and a rollercoaster of success and mishaps begins to unfold. But overall this movie feels like an attempt by director Phillips, usually a director of broad comedy, to do a ripped-from-the-headlines story about how corrupt the government can be, and one can’t help but draw comparisons to Adam McKay’s The Big Short.
With the Hangover trilogy, director Todd Phillips proved himself an expert at celebrating white, American, male buffoonery – and he hits a similar rollicking and entertaining tone in War Dogs.
War Dogs is based on a true story about two guys in their 20s that pick up a weapons contract with the Pentagon.
Jonah Hill and Miles Teller in War Dogs.
Teller is excellent in this role as Packouz. Look out, too, for Bradley Cooper as a borderline terrifying man of mystery who seems surrounded by an nearly tangible cloud of sleaze.
Landing somewhere between The Wolf of Wall Street and Scarface (referenced frequently throughout), Dogs mines laughs from the duo’s over-the-top lifestyles and brazen exploits. While there are still amusing parts, for the most part WAR DOGS is a straightforward crime drama, with an intriguingly grey sense of morality at its core. The film’s tidy script, co-written by Phillips, is assembled into the “Save the Cat” screenwriting format that dominates mainstream Hollywood output. Considering that they were virtual merchants of death, it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that Phillips never tries to make us like the two leads too much.
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Reading Lawson’s story for the first time, Hill was taken aback by “Efraim’s complete disregard for their safety and how he manipulated his friend without regard for his feelings”.
