War Dogs

War Dogs is the newest crime/drama movie directed by Todd Phillips that stars Miles Teller as David Packouz, a massage therapist in Miami, and Jonah Hill as Efraim Diveroli who is David’s long lost shady pal from high school. The premise of this movie is essentially how Efraim convinces David to come work for/with him in the arms industry and then get stupid rich.

When I heard Todd Phillips was directing this movie, the distaste from Project X and the two hangovers we didn’t need made me a bit biased towards the film without having seen even the trailer. However, the trailers for this movie were actually pretty good, it leaned more towards the corruption and power hungry vibe that resonated from “The Wolf of Wall Street”. The trailers had me very excited to see this movie, and to be quite honest I was a tad disappointed with this movie.

The movie had some really funny moments and some moments that just fell flat and just didn’t belong or need to be in the movie. It had room to improve is the most apt way to describe it. For example the relationship between David and his girlfriend/wife was completely unbelievable. This is mainly because David has certain views and she has certain views and while they say their views are the “same” you just don’t buy it at all. At one point in the movie he apparently feels the need to reaffirm that he feels a certain way about something, and you just sit there going “we already established that you don’t actually feel that way”. Plainly put when Efraim and David were on their climb to power was easily the most enjoyable part of the movie, anything after that was average at best.

Now, Miles Teller as David Packouz was actually pretty good. He transitions from massage therapist to millionaire and really his character is how the audience is supposed to relate to this movie. One day he’s working a job that he doesn’t enjoy at all but pays the bills and he is presented with an opportunity to make so much more money than he was before doing a job that is more enjoyable. As the viewer you can’t help but say to yourself “I wish I could make that much money doing a job I enjoy.” So all in all, Miles Teller’s performance was spot on and he has proved again that he is a good actor.

Jonah Hill’s performance in this movie was also pretty good and just slightly better than Miles Teller in this movie. They are obviously both very good actors  (Ex. Whiplash, The Wolf of Wall Street) I just think Jonah Hill’s was a hair better.  Efraim Diveroli proved to the audience how eccentric he was and how  condescending he was. He was the kind of guy you just wanted to punch in the face and for that he had a better performance than Miles Teller. Every time I to tried to like Efraim Diveroli, he made a snarky remark that made me hate him all over again. Props to Jonah Hill for pulling that off as it is not easy to do consistently through a movie.

However in the end War dogs was a pretty good movie that has room for improvement but was very enjoyable so I would say that War Dogs gets a grade of a B-.