War Dogs

**1/2

by Chris Corbellini

Director Todd Phillips keeps coming back to Las Vegas in his films, and it makes sense given his background as one of the drivers on the HBO series “Taxi Cab Confessions.” In the witching hours after Vegas clubs had closed, cab riders admitted to some stark, sick sh-t in that series, practically breathing Jack and coke and broken hopes all over the back of Phillips’ neck. That’s quite an apprenticeship if you want to specialize in the whacked-out-but-true.

Got a wild story? Chances are Phillips has one with at least 20 percent more batshit in it. How about THE HANGOVER – based around a bachelor party that’s so loony-tunes three friends can’t find the missing groom the morning of his wedding. It’s not hard to picture those frantic, middle-class boobs in Phillips’ cab in Vegas. And now, 20 years after his “Confessions” cab shifts, it’s also not a stretch to imagine the two gun-running bros in WAR DOGS telling him stories even more outlandish.

Unlike most weekend warrior boasting, nearly all of WAR DOGS actually went down. Indeed, if you’re going to celebrate morally bankrupt people on the big screen, you better find a story rooted in some no-fucking-way-really actual events. Not the “inspired by a true story” studio horse manure; no, The “based on a true story,” twisted stuff that made the news: a national television segment, for example, and perhaps a meaty piece by Rolling Stone magazine.

I read Guy Lawson’s “Arms and the Dudes,” which the material is based on, and it’s perfect for adapting into a big-budget summer stunner. Starting nearly a decade ago, with American wars being fought in two countries, a pair of twenty-something Miami kids made a good living off the little military contracts the big dogs didn’t want, until they land a nearly $300 million whale by offering the lowest bid. And though the bros in question talk a big game (especially over the phone), if not for arms dealing and worldwide political maneuvering, they’d likely be serving you smoothies or rubbing out your calf injury at a Miami Beach hotel, followed by a nightly ritual of sparking up a custom-made bong.  They are waaay out of their league. Yet after a fateful meeting in Vegas, they procure millions of rounds of AK-47 ammunition in Albania that’ll take care of their government’s order.

But there’s this little issue … the bullets were made in China. That’s an international problem. But what if it wasn’t? What if the rounds weren’t Chinese?, one of the bros asks. What if they repackaged them in plastic baggies and cardboard boxes? Fraud? Sure, but problem solved. And again, this all really happened. Both deserve a gold medal for bullshit – the phrase “fake it till you make it” in the flesh.

And that way of life is told through a relatively wholesome character (Miles Teller), which is the big mistake of the movie.

The movie wants to be another GOODFELLAS, complete with its own Lufthansa Heist and voice over narration explaining the life and its logistics, but Phillips only takes us halfway there. Character is everything. The narrator in GOODFELLAS is Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill, who comes off as reliable only half the time. He is, after all, a born crook. So from Hill’s point of view, the Pesci and DeNiro characters are the murderers, and in key moments he’s the peacemaker that simply loved the glamour of it all, complete with front-row tables at the Copa. Sounds like something you’d tell a district attorney after you get busted for drugs (and he does), and it works. It might not be what really happened, but it’s his version of what really happened, and wasn’t the life so amazing before his drug habit brought him down?

WAR DOGS has Teller, who, if the movie is to be believed, stays an arms dealer to raise a family right – a lovely young Cuban wife (Ana de Armas) and baby girl — and to relive some not-so-glory days with his best friend from middle school, the Jonah Hill character. When things go full sh-tstorm, it’s Teller who promises to pay people, who wants to kiss his daughter goodnight, who asks about the whereabouts of an employee, and who challenges Hill in a key moment.  His VO narration is considered the voice of reason. He tells his wife he’ll never lie to her again. And he doesn’t.

The actor does a fine job of projecting a decent enough guy spinning in a washing machine of crazy, but even if Teller’s character, David Packouz, started out that way in real life, there’s no way that industry of death didn’t sink under his skin. In the origin story in Rolling Stone, Packouz is almost bragging about what he did. You can rationalize why they got into the business, there will always be a war somewhere, and soldiers have to be outfitted with gear, so why not win that contract? But celebrating that on film? Only if the main character is full-tilt antihero – becoming as awful as the system that put all those soldiers in harm’s way.

Still, there are pockets of awesomeness in WAR DOGS. Jonah Hill screaming, “I LOVE DICK CHENEY’S AMERICA!!!!” sort of hooked me for good in Act 2. And Hill in general makes this film worth watching.

Here, the actor formerly known as Seth Rogan’s second fiddle looks like he swallowed a bowling ball, hasn’t shaved in six days, and (almost) can’t keep all the lies straight. Basically, he’s a coked-up wolverine — a not-too-distant cousin from his drooling, rabid hedgehog character in WOLF OF WALL STREET. I’ll admit I believed what Hill’s character, Efraim Diveroli, was selling during a final, fateful business meeting in an elevator. Hill used shared history and friendship as a form of currency — an all-too-common way a man-child can convince his bros to go along with the selling of their souls. But instead of a bear hug and tearful reunion, Diveroli experienced something altogether different.

Is that the lesson for being merchants of death? Probably not. At least one of them would happily go back to arms dealing if they could, and if the narrator is being honest, probably both. All that money is sitting there, between the lines and lies. And a good way to spend it, as Phillips knows, is during a bender in Sin City.