War Dogs

This review may contain spoilers!

I guess either war movies have gotten boring or biopics about white boys getting rich has. I would give War Dogs a 4.5/10.

The plot gets really good around the final act of the film; the open corruption and depravity really starts to fall under a strong lens and it finally brings out the more interesting qualities in the two leads. The cinematography in this film had it's up and downs, what ultimately makes me say that it was a positive aspect was because of some incredibly framed shots that really stood out even if they were far apart.

Mosa Omari, who played Jordanian Boy, was a really fun minor role; Omari has a really strong performance and banters back and forth strongly with Teller and Hill. Andrei Finti, who played Yili Pinari, had a really strong screen appearance despite such a minor role; Finti has a very casual type of comedic role which I thought was exceptionally amusing.

However the best performance came from Jonah Hill, who played Efraim Diveroli. This movie really only thrives when Hill's onscreen; he takes the opportunity to outperform the rest of the cast any chance he gets. Hill has become an Academy Award nominee twice and it really shows in a film like this where he is consistently outclassing everyone else, his screen presence is phenomenal. Hill is a wild card in this film; sure he's funny as hell, but he also has this unspoken intensity which makes you feel like's about to explode and kill someone.

Let's get back to what I said at the start of this review, this film is boring. This is a film that relies heavily upon exposition, narration and the power of jargon; it's like get belted over the head with a corporate textbook. I said earlier that this film gets good near the end, but this also means something else; we get one hell of a long ride to get there. It only gets better the more depraved it gets which means it's a real slog getting there, imagine if Wolf Of Wall Street had sucked and you have a good idea of what this film is like. The editing is a real eyesore in War Dogs, you have several transitions that just feel dated and other cuts which just seem abrupt. The score for this film is immediately forgettable but the soundtrack is the real let down, the song selection doesn't seem to have much purpose and this really means a lot of scenes lose their value.

Miles Teller, who played David Packouz, was an extremely boring main protagonist; Teller feels drained of the life the more we hear his voice and the only authentic moments we actually seem to get is when his role is getting high. Julian Sergi, who played Rosen, was an extremely dull minor role; Sergi doesn't really have any connection with Teller or the rest of the cast for that matter. Ana de Armas, who played Iz, was just straight up poor casting; her acting is terrible and the entire storyline of her being Teller's love interest falls flat pretty quick. Kevin Pollak, who played Ralph Slutzky, is a role that is given far more significance than is needed; Pollak just has no screen presence and you often forget about him in the scenes he's in. Patrick St. Esprit, who played Captain Philip Santos, just gives a far too generic performance; we get this stock army role and get very little else out of him. Shaun Toub, who played Marlboro, was a bit of a gimmick character; he played a goofy native to the two idiotic Americans and it felt like something we've seen a million times before. Bradley Cooper, who played Henry Girard, gave an extremely flat performance in this film; he wasn't particularly threatening which was disappointing to see in the major crime boss role. JB Blanc, who played Bashkim, could have been an extremely funny side character if they'd given Blanc the opportunity; this role really is like the film: full of wasted opportunity. Gabriel Spahiu, who played Enver, wasn't really given much to work with in this film; for the significance of his role you feel like they'd have let this role do a bit more in his scenes.