Interesting Story About 2 Con Artists Selling Weapons to the U.S. Government

Rating: 8/10 (3 September 2016)

I was pretty stoked to see War Dogs. Jonah Hill has been on a roll lately and having an unconventional director like Todd Phillips telling a story about 2 guys lucking into a giant contract to arm the U.S. government was intriguing. I'm also a big fan of Lord of War, I think it's really underrated (one of Nicolas Cage's best movies) and I was excited to see a similar story. After having seen War Dogs, don't expect something mind-blowing but it does have an interesting story to tell.
*Minor Spoilers Ahead* David Packouz (Miles Teller) is working as a massage therapist in Miami. He's working to try and start a family with his girlfriend Iz (Ana de Armas) but he hasn't really found any purpose in his life. He gets stoned and tries to get through his day and his clients sexually harassing him. He also makes a stop as he's trying to sell bed sheets on the side and its not going well. The next day he has to go to a funeral for a friend and he runs into his best friend from middle school Efraim Deveroli (Jonah Hill). The two were trouble makers in their younger years and its implied that their parents separated them against their will. Efraim is happy to see David and they catch up a little bit. Efraim laughs at what David is doing and tells him he had a falling out with his last business partner (his uncle) and he moved back to Miami to set up shop for himself. He deals in small time contracts supplying arms to the U.S. government. David is impressed but is against the war. They go to score weed and when they get ripped off Efraim pulls out an assault rifle from the trunk of his car. It certainly causes the dealers to scatter and he invites David to his office to explain his job to him a little better the next day.
The plot of this movie has a really interesting hook. AEY (the company David and Efraim eventually form) finding contracts to fill that major suppliers ignore and making bank off of them is fun to watch. Efraim and David aren't completely incompetent but they're dishonest and they don't understand their place in their industry. How they could appear legitimate enough to be so seriously involved with Uncle Sam is baffling. It's a so strange it's true story and they include some interesting bits about how the U.S. government supplied their army in the Iraq war. War Dogs doesn't have too many twists and turns that you don't see coming but you'll find yourself wanting to know where David and Efraim will go next. It's not as informative as The Big Short for example but you do pick up some good nuggets along with following a pretty engaging story.
I mentioned that Todd Phillips was a strange choice considering how serious the material is. The trailers for War Dogs are misleading, the movie is more of a drama than a comedy but I enjoyed it all the same. It did have the sense of humour that Todd's movies tend to have (on the dark side and sometimes vulgar). The movie was also a lot more stylish than I expected it to be. It's well filmed and there was more effort put into creating an attractive movie as opposed to just relying on the material. The soundtrack was also good but it was a little on the nose and they really blared it at points. It didn't make me mad but the lack of subtlety with it was a little annoying.
Jonah Hill continues his recent run of excellent work. It's not my favourite performance of his but he brings life to this movie and although his character is a scumbag, he's the proficient one and how he's able to navigate through his job is one of the big reasons War Dogs works. Miles Teller is also good, he's playing the more normal of the two characters and he's less in your face. Bradley Cooper really does excellent work in the short amount of screen time he gets. He's menacing and I was happy to watch him play a different part in this movie. His character was more in the background and I liked that, any other movie would have made him an over-the-top villain. He was an appropriately ruthless businessman and it seemed more real. It was nice to see Kevin Pollak again and I also liked Ana de Armas in her role, she's definitely a supporting part and while she's not given a whole lot of backstory, she's fine in her part.
Another small thing I liked with War Dogs is that the ending didn't go the typical route. This is a rise and fall story and it looks like you're going to get that same old ending. War Dogs sidesteps that and instead of scolding David for doing what he did, they go for something more open-ended. The moral of the story is that what they did was wrong but instead of beating you over the head with it, they pose the question that will David stick to his new found moral code when presented with temptation? It was different and it upped the grade of the movie for me.
I thought War Dogs was an interesting movie that did a good job presenting the story of these 2 guys in a different way. It follows a familiar arc and you can guess where the story is going to go but the acting and the new angle it presents on arms dealers help compensate. I still prefer Lord of War but this was a solid movie and a good way to close out the summer movie season.