Director Todd Phillips
Staring Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Steve Lantz
Rated M
Score 4/6

Based on the true story of two young men, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America’s allies in Afghanistan.

There is this small part of my brain that whenever I watch movies that are based on a true story that always likes to wonder how much of this movie was based on the complete truth and how much of it was Hollywood story telling. Though I suppose this is one of those ‘quirky’ pieces of history that only a few people might recall instead of learning about it in a movie. I guess that part of brain is going to have to be satisfied with being told ‘for legal reasons we may never really know’. But even if you disregard the fact that this was adapted from a rolling stone article “Arms and the Dudes” by Guy Lawson about Packouz and Diveroli this has a massive ‘this could only happen in a movie’ kind of vibe that has more than a few laugh out loud moments (though there more than a few people who need to learn to never give away to many jokes in the preview, this is more of a in general kind of rule then specifically calling out War Dogs for giving away to much). This is a bit of a departure for what you might expect from Todd Phillips who is known primarily for the Hangover movies. I might not be the biggest fan of some of Jonah Hill’s comic roles (21 Jump Street comes to mind) though I have to admit that he is a proven cable actor with a broad range and worked well with some of the movie’s laugh out loud moments and as for Miles Teller well it was just good to see him in a role that was not in a “teen romance” movie.