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Todd Phillips, the director who gave us "The Hangover" movies, aims for his "GoodFellas" moment with "War Dogs," an aggressively obnoxious true story of young arms dealers bottom-feeding off the Pentagon.
David Packouz (Miles Teller) was a young Miami massage therapist who, in 2005, ran into his old junior-high acquaintance, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), who brought Packouz on board to his growing business — securing small-fry contracts from the Pentagon for the Iraq War.
As the movie details, Packouz starts bringing home some serious cash, but hides the source of this wealth from his pregnant girlfriend, Iz (Ana de Armas). When the headstrong gun-runners try to move into the big leagues, teaming with a shady arms dealer (Bradley Cooper, seemingly cosplaying as Bono) to move 100 million rounds of AK-47 ammo to Afghanistan, Packouz sees Diveroli's dark side as the dealmaking turns dangerous and illegal.
Phillips (who shares writing credit with Stephen Chin and Jason Smilovic) wallows in this story of young hustlers, pumped up on testosterone and self-importance, spouting "Scarface" references to buck themselves up.
Phillips tries to stage his own version of a Scorsese movie, with Pentagon procurement replacing "The Wolf of Wall Street's" corporate greed as the omnipresent villain. But he can't pull off a multilayered narrative with these unsympathetic characters, and no one onscreen is even vaguely charismatic or interesting.
'War Dogs'
Opening Friday, Aug. 19, in theaters everywhere; rated R for language throughout, drug use and some sexual references; 114 minutes.