War Dogs

Synopsis: The true story of two young men, David Packouz (Miles Teller) and Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.

Imagine Seth from 2007’s Superbad all grown up and you’ve got Jonah Hill’s character Efraim from War Dogs. Miles Teller isn’t exactly Michael Cera’s Evan but he’s pretty much the same nice guy whose pliable nature gets him into no end of trouble thanks to his loyalty to his much less scrupulous friend.  In fact if you imagine Superbad morphed into The Wolf Of Wall Street you’ve got the measure of this film which charts the rise and fall of two friends who grew up believing that Tony Montana was the American Dream in action. The only significant difference with Superbad is that there is no sweet rapprochement at the end of this film (although there is a rather odd coda which seems to suggest that ultimately David isn't entirely reformed. Either that or Bradley Cooper, who was a producer, just wanted to give himself more screen time).

Directed by Todd Phillips who was responsible for the hugely successful Hangover franchise, there’s not a lot to say about War Dogs. It’s a well-packaged if familiar Hollywood yarn about boys behaving badly. Which means that it is more or less like The Hangover films mixed with The Wolf Of Wall Street and Superbad and will appeal to audiences looking for a couple of hours of disposable vicarious entertainment. The only difference is the serious backdrop of the arms industry whose staggering wastefulness and appalling cupidity is exposed with satirical glee. But you probably don't need to go to the movies just to find out about that. Leonard Cohen's marvellously bleak condemnation of the capitalist system, "Everybody Knows", which plays over the end credits, says more about its moral bankruptcy than this film does.

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