This Gun Runs.

Rating: 5/10 (19 August 2016)

After three Hangover films, two progressively worse than the first, and after another shift in the popularity of comedy films, you'd think that we had seen the last of Todd Phillips. But here he returns with War Dogs, a film that doesn't include Tigers in bathrooms, Mike Tyson karaoke, or men over the age of 40 waking up the next morning wondering what the hell they did the night before. This time, it's guns, ammo, drugs, the Iraq War, The Bush administration, fraud, corruption, greed and a group of violent Albanian mobsters. This is no laughing matter. This is Phillips' first attempt at making a truly serious film, while supplying his familiar style of dark comedy. But when you factor in the freeze-frame shots, the narrations, the soundtrack of classic rock tunes, the violence and the drugs, this film is nothing short of a love letter to Martin Scorsese. I kid you not, that's what this film is. Roll your eyes all you want, but it's a style of filmmaking that always works, especially when you're making something based on a true story. Paul Thomas Anderson did it with Boogie Nights, David O. Russell did it with American Hustle, Adam McKay did it with The Big Short.. and so on, and so on. I'll never dislike a movie that attempts to emulate Scorsese, no matter how blatant it could be. War Dogs succeeds with this formula, up to a certain point. When it comes to the political angle that the film takes, it wants you to believe that it's smarter than it actually is. It takes it's aim at the military industrial complex under Bush, but with the rise of a non- interventionalist foreign policy embraced by both parties, thanks to Trump and Sanders, this kind of subject is hardly daring. You're preaching to the converted, Todd. We all know that the Iraq War sucked. The edge is simply not there, but the performances and the writing make up for it. Teller and Hill have tremendous chemistry. They make believable brothers. Jonah Hill in particular is mesmerizing, creepy and totally hilarious. If this was a much better picture, you'd probably be hearing a lot of award buzz surrounding his performance. I really enjoyed Bradley Cooper's interesting bad-guy character. In short, it's a fairly entertaining, fairly long, and not too bad time at the movies, but it doesn't break any new ground, and it's nothing to rave about.