Despite performances, no clear battle plan for ‘War Dogs.’
Despite good performances, this comedy/thriller has no clear battle plan
It seems pretty obvious that no one behind “War Dogs” could decide what kind of movie to make.
At times, it’s a ridiculous comedy. Other times, it’s a semi-thriller. It occasionally teeters on being an historical movie, delving into a questionable post-9/11 military practice. By the end, it becomes another in a long line of films trying to capture the storytelling genius of “GoodFellas.” “GoodFellas” this movie is not. But it’s not terrible, either. Even if no one could decide what kind of movie to make, they at least came up with some pretty good material.
“War Dogs,” based on real events, tells the story of two twentysomething friends who get into the arms business as the U.S. wages post-9/11 war on Afghanistan and Iraq. Cap-
italizing on a little-known military initiative allowing small contractors to supply American troops, Efraim Diveroli (an over-the-top Jonah Hill) and his childhood friend David Packouz (Miles Teller) start small and eventually grow their business into a multimillion dollar weapons enterprise.
Which, of course, is when the trouble begins. They find themselves in over their heads when middleman weapons dealer Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper) hooks them up with a deal that seems too good to be true: buying cheap old munitions from a former Eastern Bloc country and selling them to the Afghan army through the U.S. government.
Teller plays the conscientious one of the pair. His character and his pregnant girlfriend are against the war. But after a string of dead-end jobs, the offer to join his buddy for big money is too alluring to pass up (his gig as a Miami Beach massage therapist produces some awkwardly funny mo- ments). It’s an issue that many of us have faced: how to balance beliefs against money and ego. Packouz’s dilemma is the one thread running fairly consistently through the film.
Hill’s character Diveroli — whose hero is Scarface — is almost too much. But Hill effectively captures this larger-than-life character who has a knack for telling people what they want to hear and a never-wavering drive for deal making. Diveroli is part frat boy and part sociopath, and Hill is good at making you believe Diveroli always has some- thing up his sleeve.
Director Todd Phillips (“The Hangover”) obviously has a knack for road-movie humor, which he employs when Packouz and Diveroli have to get through a desert war zone to deliver a truckload of weapons to U.S. troops.
The movie still works at this point; there aren’t many big laughs, but there are enough twists and turns to keep things interesting and mildly amusing.
But when “War Dogs” tries to get serious and thoughtful, the charm starts wearing off. Not sur- prisingly, this is when the “GoodFellas” similarities start kicking in. The slowmotion camera work, Packouz’s freeze-frame narration, the main characters enjoying newfound riches that you know won’t last — it’s as if Martin Scorsese wandered on the set and assumed the director’s chair.
Phillips occasionally seems like he wants to make some real points about the U.S. spending so much money, so haphazardly, in the volatile Middle East. But the points don’t really land, because the film keeps twisting in different directions until its predictable climax. Even the almost-obligatory war-is-hell theme doesn’t get a chance to develop here.
“War Dogs” is based on real-life characters, which may be the most interesting thing about it. I’d like to see someone make a documentary about Packouz and Diveroli, because there’s a really interesting story here somewhere.