Susan Granger’s review of “War Dogs” (Warner Bros.)
Director Todd Phillips brings the same raucous sensibility that characterized his “Hangover” trilogy to this supposedly ‘true story’ about how a couple of dorky Florida stoners became international arms dealers.
When 22 year-old David Packouz (Miles Teller) ran into his old Hebrew-school chum, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), Packouz was feeling adrift, doing massage therapy and selling high-thread-count bedsheets to retirement homes – to the chagrin of his long-suffering girlfriend (Ana de Armas).
When brash, obnoxious Diveroli relates how he’s devised a scam to lowball government contracts, Packouz decides to join him. It seems that after the U.S. government under Dick Chaney was charged with cronyism with Halliburton, Lockheed Martin and large other corporations, smaller bidders were solicited to supply munitions, as needed.
That’s how these two idiotic dudes become weapons contractors for the Pentagon, despite their personal disdain for President George W. Bush and America’s involvement in the Iraq War.
“It’s not about being pro-war; it’s about being pro-money.”
Starting small, they perfect their hustling techniques – which leads them on a trip to Jordan, where they journey across 500 miles of dangerous desert from Amman to Baghdad to deliver a truckload of Italian-made Berretas.
Bradley Cooper shows up as sleazy Harry Girard, whom they meet at an Ammo Expo in Las Vegas, which Diveroli describes as “Comic-Con with grenades.” That encounter eventually takes them to an Albanian warehouse filled with 93 million rounds of AK-47 ammo whose origins are questionable.
Based on Guy Lawson’s 2011 Rolling Stone article, their story has been adapted by Stephen Chin, Jason Smilovic and director Phillips, who attempted to make it into a satirical buddy comedy – with lots of ‘chapter’ breaks and without much success.
FYI: the real Diveroli pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy and was sentenced in 2011 to four years in prison. In May, 2016, he filed a lawsuit, alleging that the filmmakers stole his story.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “War Dogs” is a flaccid 5, only fitfully funny.
