Sure, you know what they’re doing is wrong, but you’re having so much fun as you take the ride with them that you nearly don’t care.
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“This is fantastic!” you say to the producer.
It’s an absolutely insane story of the ambition, delusion and megalomania of a few young strivers who managed to find a lucrative place in the worldwide arms game.
“Close!” says the producer, “He’s a huge star. Better than I thought it was going to be”.
You hang up the phone. While Teller and Cooper give solid performances, Hill, who has received Oscar nominations for “Moneyball” and “The Wolf of Wall Street”, ups his game again to the caliber that he brought when he earned his second nomination. Hill as Diveroli is the guy you love to hate. “But, for me, it is always interesting to meet the real-life person you’re playing”. War movies are a dime a dozen though, and the reason this one is so worth seeing is because it is so insanely different. But there is no debate that the two kids managed to procure a insane $300 million contract with the U.S. Military. I mean, who’d accept that two twentysomething yeshiva boys from Miami could strike it rich by bidding on US military contracts? “Also, don’t let us know about it if it’s not exactly legally acquired”.
Packouz comes under the malignant influence of childhood buddy Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) and is soon selling millions of dollars worth of weapons to US forces from black markets. His Efraim is the kind of con artist who could probably sell you your own mother. Pictures shows Miles Teller, left, and Ana De Armas in a scene from, “War Dogs”. With a good measure of Guy Ritchie’s Snatch thrown in too. Jonah Hill is at absolute ease essaying a part he knows only too well – a mirthless sycophant with no real education or talent, wanting to make big money fast. They hold meetings at strip clubs because of course they do. “It’s all relative. But this movie is definitely on the lower end of the way most movies are made nowadays”.
And sure, antiheroes usually aren’t nice guys. Since it’s a true story, that shouldn’t be much of a spoiler. But when presented well, antiheroes are also complex, and David and Efraim are anything but. Hill’s Efraim is a cocky, gaudy hustler with the funniest laugh you’d never expect. It doesn’t matter to him who gets put in danger along the way as long as he gets the money he thinks he is owed.
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After years of somber movies and documentaries about America’s war on terror, director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) offers a comedic, satirical take in the fact-based film, War Dogs.
