War Dogs - Movie Review

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After missing its theatrical run back in 2016, I finally caught War Dogs on streaming this weekend. Given that director Todd Phillips was famous for the sheer debauchery of The Hangover trilogy, I went in expecting a brainless bro-comedy. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised. 

The film is merely a cynical dive into how the Pentagon treats international conflict like an open-mic bidding war reminding the viewers of a hard truth: war is an economy, and someone is always cashing the checks. Gets as fictional as it could get.

The story tracks David Packouz (Miles Teller), a struggling Miami massage therapist who gets reacquainted with his childhood best friend, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill). 

Efraim is a slick, cutthroat hustle-bro exploiting a loophole that allows small businesses to bid on US military contracts.

Jonah Hill is absolutely magnetic here. 

Dressed in oversized linen shirts, slicked-back hair, and sporting a deeply unnerving, high-pitched fake laugh, he perfectly encapsulates the greed of the American Dream gone rotten. 

Miles Teller plays the grounded, anxious anchor beautifully, convincing us of how easily an ordinary guy can get sucked into a multi-million-dollar arms-dealing vortex.

While Todd Phillips heavily borrows stylistic cues from Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street - complete with freeze-frames, voiceovers, and an energetic classic rock soundtrack—the film holds its own due to its terrifying real-world basis. 

The sequence where they drive a truck full of Beretta pistols through Iraq’s "Triangle of Death" just to fulfill a contract is both thrilling and absurd at the same time. 

It has the guts to showcase the glaring incompetence of government vetting processes. If you love breezy crime-dramas wrapped in geopolitical irony, this one is well worth your time. 

Watch on Netflix.

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