Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Miles Teller, Jonah Hill, Bradley Cooper, Ana de Armas, Kevin Pollack, David Packouz, Eddie Jemison, Julian Sergi, Edson Jean, Patrick St. Esprit, Jeremy Tardy, Ashley Spillers, J. B. Blanc, Gabriel Spahiu.
War has always been good for the economy, especially those that want to make a killing. It is no secret that the point of war is not to spread peace but to make money and for some bullets and dollars are all that make sense.
Based on the Rolling Stone article Arms And The Dudes, Todd Phillips’ War Dogs takes the story of David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli’s time as gun and hardware suppliers to the American Army and their allies and shows audiences just how insane the whole system truly is. Not only is war fought in the deserts and streets of a so called enemy country, it is fought in the bidding process played out by the Pentagon and those who see the manufacture of a bullet as the road to peace.
Insane or not, the film is well told, Miles Teller bounces back from the disaster of the 2015 Fantastic Four debacle and shows the intensity and acting ability that was evident in Whiplash and for Jonah Hill, a continuation of the greed is good persona he employed with style and brashness in The Wolf of Wall Street opposite Leonardo DiCaprio but one with serious undertones of mental instability that is caught in the revelling scenes of the film, not least when the part calls for him to handle a weapon.
The film is telling in the way that it asks the two protagonists to look upon themselves when using weapons, the revelry in the eyes of Jonah Hill’s Efraim Diveroli, the almost non-existence in the hands of Miles Teller’s David Packouz. It is not until the bitter recriminations and the corrupt greed spills over from the wallet of Diveroli that Packouz resorts to the throwing of a replica of a grenade that the whole point of their relationship is seen.
The film is amusing but it also reflects America’s almost intolerable hold on its dogmatic belief that guns and war are a basic right; the gung ho attitude of a bad John Wayne speech dressed in patriotism is all the country desires to know that it is always on the side of might and anything can be purchased if the price is right.
War Dogs is a film of absolutes, the first and foremost that these two men are not heroes, they may seem to be a modern day equivalent of Robin Hood, robbing the Government to kill of Peter and Paul’s enemies, but they are in the end just another couple of people out to make a buck in the land of the free. A dynamic film, incredibly interesting and worth every minute that you spend watching the screen for but one that really does leave a bitter after taste in the mouth.
Ian D. Hall