Another disappointing summer movie

Rating: 4/10 (22 August 2016)

In 'War Dogs' we follow Miles Teller and Jonah Hill as two young men trying to make money from the war in Iraq by selling weapons to the US army. The movie is directed by Todd Phillips who is better known for the 'The Hangover' trilogy.
Right of the bat the movie tries to seem more clever than it actually is. Via a flash-forward that shows one of the main characters in a predicament the movie tries to create a sense of tension that would otherwise have been non-apparent. This quickly fades as the story is very predictable with characters that are not all that interesting considering their motives are never properly explained and very flimsy. Throughout the movie is some narration paired with title cards indicating different chapters. Most of the times the chapters do not seem any different which made these title cards unnecessary and it is clear they were just added afterwards in as a last ditch effort to make the movie more interesting. Halfway trough the movie almost comes to a grinding halt and from thereon out it never really manages to get the viewer's interest back.
The directing was very bland, considering not one scene was shot in a very interesting fashion. Often times it seemed as if the movie does not really know what it wants to be. Sometimes character's respond to a certain situation in a comedic fashion while other times the tone is shifted to a more serious one. Todd Phillips never really tries to mix in some of his own style and with another director the movie would've probably turned out roughly the same.
The only redeeming factor of the movie are the actors themselves as they did a decent job at portraying their characters, though ultimately not one performance was very memorable. In the end 'War Dogs' joins the 2016 collection of disappointing summer movies.
My rating: 4/10