It’s a thing of joy to see Jonah Hill in all his elements, steered by a director that understands his finer nuances. Todd Philips, the director who brought us the freakishly amazing Hangover trilogy came set to deliver. This time not on another tale of demented debauchery, but a satirically loose motion picture on fortune, extreme living and the US Military’s solecisms. A niche for Todd Philips, considering the script and his filmography.
Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) and David Packouz (Miles Teller) play key-roles on this one. David Packouz is a weed smoking massage therapist whose life changes when he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. Efraim Diveroli is the very quirky damnable fellow who rescues his friend David from an unfulfilling life by making him partner in his small-time-big-money gun running enterprise–AEY.
War Dogs is set in a time when private arm-contractors experienced unprecedented boom, owing to Bush-Cheney’s masterless invasion of Afghanistan. The War is at its peak, the military is considerably funded, arms and ammunitions are on a steady flow and arm dealers are shuffling to the bank.
The movie evinces a book written by Guy Lawson that tells a true life story about two ambitious young men who crawl their way to the top of the gun-running food chain, but eventually in trite fashion, they fail to keep afloat. Before that, it’s back to back hits for these boys till they meet their Delilah-deal, facilitated by an infamous arms dealer, Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper)
The flick gets to its fairy-best when the dotty pair drive from Jordan to Baghdad via the “triangle of death” to supply a lorry-load of Beretta Guns to the US Army! Massive four scenes. After that, the plot goes vapid, garbled and predictable. Todd Philips struggled with keeping his 114mins expository comic drama amusing and morally edifying at the same time. A tough task it proved
In this struggle, Philips brought in a needless and confusing character in Iz(Ana de Armas), wife of David. At some point she berates her husband for his grave job; at some other point she’s a relentless supporter, later on, she makes a U-turn, all conveniently enough to guide the movie’s nearly wayward plot
A mishit notwithstanding, War Dogs tell a very striking ignominious tale on how Bush’s administration flunked in the Afghan incursion. Salute to Jonah Hill for delivering what many might call his best performance since The Wolf of Wall Street.
Critic Score: 5.5/10
God’s wordsmith
