War Dogs is based on the true story of twenty-something arms dealers who land a huge Pentagon contract to provide weapons for the Afghan army.
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“War Dogs” tries. A 2008 prologue reveals David Packouz, the Teller character, at the wrong end of a pistol somewhere in Albania.
Things do get substantially darker (and more over the top) when the guys take on the $300 million contract that will eventually be their downfall. They aren’t big enough to go after the big fish, but they eat all the crumbs left behind. It has no opinion on war; it isn’t concerned with exposing the USA government for the procedural mistakes that allowed two 20-somethings (Efraim and David) to bag an arms contract worth millions of dollars; it isn’t even interested in any emotional tangles (the one concerning David and his wife is solved too easily).
This being the movies, sad-sack David has an exotic, impossibly handsome and devoted live-in girlfriend named Iz (Ana de Armas), whose function in this story (SPOILER ALERT!) will be to wear tank tops and short-shorts, reveal the results of a pregnancy test at a key moment in the plot, and look unbelievable in close-up shots as he reassures her everything is OK, even as he’s taking a phone call during the sonogram and disappearing on mysterious overseas trips. He’s a hothead who enjoys cocaine, prostitutes, and he doesn’t mind breaking the law. Phillips does a good job in laying out the parameters of the story, making it clear how the window of opportunity opened for AEY and Efraim and David were in the right place at the right time. But if you’re hoping for this to be another Wolf of Wall Street, Pain & Gain, or even Lord of War, you’re going to be very disappointed. The hope is that moviegoers will be entertained, yet go home with few nuggets of truth.
The unhinged nature of the character and Hill’s venal glee in playing up the worst in human nature keeps War Dogs interesting but some audience members see it differently. Teller and Hill have a buddy chemistry that at times suggests a frathouse Henry IV, where Hal’s struggle is not to put away childish things but to steer clear from risky adult things like Ak-47 ammo.
But it fails at doing both. But moving within its wild and wacky and improbably true scenarios (some of them, anyway) are people you don’t really want to know. How it works is never shown. He is fun, over the top and, like David says in the narration, at times is someone you’d aspire to be.
Beyond the lack of insight, my main issue with War Dogs is that it’s formulaic and bland. But Efraim and David are very good at the details when it comes to making the pitch; not very good at the details when it comes to delivering the product. They’re attitudes are so far apart, it’s awesome these two are business partners and friends. The movie starts to fall apart towards the middle, as the friendship disintegrates along with Teller’s marriage, which is an underdeveloped story line. These frantic scenes give War Dogs its best moments. And, unbeknownst to the US government at the time, numerous supplies they were selling were over 40 years old, manufactured in China and basically unusable. Their only client? The U.S. Military. Sadly, this story barley touches on these topics.
Interlaced with the fact is much more fiction, notably the character of Packouz’s Latin-accented lover (Ana de Armas). The stakes are uneven.
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Even though Phillips was not able to secure the Guns N’ Roses track for his movie, he was still able to put together a diverse soundtrack for the film.
