War Dogs

Director Todd Phillips brings the same raucous sensibility that characterized his Hangover trilogy to this supposedly “true story” of how two dorky Florida stoners became international arms dealers. When 22-year-old David Packouz (Miles Teller) runs into his old Hebrew-school chum, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), the former is somewhat adrift, doing massage therapy and selling high-thread-count bedsheets to retirement homes—much to the chagrin of his long-suffering girlfriend (Ana de Armas). When brash, obnoxious Diveroli devises a scam to lowball government contracts, Packouz decides to join him. It seems that after the U.S. government was charged during the Bush administration with cronyism for deals with Halliburton (Dick Cheney's former company), Lockheed Martin, and other large corporations, smaller bidders were then subsequently solicited to supply munitions. And that's how these two idiots become weapons contractors for the Pentagon, despite their personal disdain for Bush and America's involvement in the Iraq War. Starting small, they perfect their hustling technique, which leads them on a trip to Jordan, where they cross 500 miles of dangerous desert from Amman to Baghdad to deliver a truckload of Italian-made Beretta pistols. Bradley Cooper appears as sleazy arms dealer Henry Girard, whom they meet at an Ammo Expo in Las Vegas, which Diveroli describes as “Comic-Con with grenades.” That encounter eventually takes the pair to an Albanian warehouse filled with 93 million rounds of AK-47 ammo that is of questionable origin. Based on Guy Lawson's 2011 Rolling Stone profile, their story has been transformed into a satirical buddy comedy that is only fitfully funny. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “Pentagon Pie” behind-the-scenes segment (3 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are the production featurettes “Access Granted” (10 min.) and “General Phillips: Boots on the Ground” (9 min.), and a bonus UltraViolet copy of the film. Bottom line: a small extras package for a so-so comic film.] (S. Granger)