Turns out, the guys aren’t fun-loving counter-authority figures, they are crooked arms dealers looking to cash in on the government’s blind largesse, and Efraim isn’t a jolly, resourceful clown, he’s a unsafe narcissist who, as David says, “would figure out who someone wanted him to be, and. become that person”, the very definition of a sociopath.
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Teller was able to meet the guy he plays on screen.
Looking back on the experience of making “War Dogs”, Teller admitted it did make him think a lot about the factors that made this seemingly insane situation a reality. Some might question why a movie with such serious subject matter requires that sensibility, and that is fair.
David Packouz (Miles Teller) was a struggling twenty-something massage therapist in Miami when he re-connected with childhood friend Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill). But the film has its share of weightier moments, too, as David is caught in a web of lies with his wife (Ana de Armas) and Efraim’s backstabbing severs their longtime friendship. Together, they exploit a government initiative that allows small businesses to bid on USA military contracts. It was 2008. The United States was fighting two wars and outsourcing pretty much everything. When their first contract winds up seized at customs, the two are forced to travel to Jordan and ride with a truckload of Berettas all the way to Baghdad.
In what had to be another aside to Scorsese, Phillips placed his “Hangover” leading man Bradley Cooper in a crucial supporting role as a shady, nearly certainly bent middle man whose Coke bottle bottom glasses more than recall those worn by Robert DeNiro in “Casino”. So what do you do?’ ‘We’re global arms dealers.’ The initial reaction went from ‘You’re kidding, right?’ to ‘You’re full of shit, ‘ but once they realized we were not joking, they were blown away.
But everything leading up to that point is actually very entertaining.
Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) is the kind of loud, disarmingly round dude who slicks his hair back, wears Lacoste shades, calls everyone “bro”, and acts as if he’s got everything well in hand. He’s a chameleon of sorts, always becoming precisely who he needs to be in order to close a deal. It’s fascinating how these things can kind of snowball and you can get in way over your head. 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.
But it’s a bark that’s loud and frequently enjoyable. Cooper brings a bit of much-needed gravity to the proceedings, too. Between Hill’s impeccably sleazy performance and a catchy screenplay, War Dogs is a summer hit that will have audiences inexplicably rooting for its complicit protagonists. Perhaps it’s Efraim’s weird little laugh, or just the sense that some of it feels manufactured, rather than organic.
“War Dogs” is an odd beast.
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Wright writes about movies for The San Diego Union-Tribune.
