STORY:
Two high school friends – David Packouz (Teller) and Efraim Diveroli (Hill) – with a yen for weapons and the ability to make a few hundreds of millions of dollars or more, bag a deal from the Pentagon to supply arms to American allies in Afghanistan. This is, after a decent bit of hustling. Seems straightforward enough? Probably not. For when the stakes are so high, you can bet anything that there’s going to be some dirty deeds being done.
REVIEW:
A quick lookup of this movie might label it to be a comedy. However, it is anything but that. If there is any humour in this, it is a brand of dark humour that is played upon with a light touch, thanks to the director’s and screenwriters’ vision. And of course, Teller and Hill, who both excel in their roles.
Teller’s Packouz is the unlikely arms dealer who used to working a massage parlour in Miami. Hill is the unrepentant smooth-talker, unabashed risk-taker and high-strung counterfoil to Packouz. You will definitely see shades of the character that he played in Wolf Of Wall Street, where he did a commendable job opposite Leo’s character.
War Dogs is a telling statement about the shadowy and murky world – albeit a dollar-drenched one fraught with risk and danger at every turn – of arms contractors and subcontractors who facilitate the running of the global war machine. Efraim’s repetitive whoops of joy about ‘Dick Cheney’s America’ (the movie does reference to the past few years).
It is also a barely-veiled reference to how two relative amateurs armed with ambition, can make suckers out of the most powerful government on Earth, by playing on their desire to carry on the war industry.
It does catch up with them in time though, as no one does really escape the long arm of the law. But Teller and Hill’s camaraderie is undeniably present. They’re a delight to watch as they play of each other really well. There’s a generous dose of fiction thrown in but for the most part, War Dogs serves up some pretty kick ass entertainment.
Source: Times of India
