War Dogs (2016)

War Dogs (2016)

Elevator Pitch: David Packouz is embroiled in an unsuccessful business venture with a pregnant girlfriend when Efraim Diveroli, an old friend, bounces back into his life and hires him to assist with an embryonic arms dealing venture. The company objective is to identify government contracts that others might have missed and they have some initial success spurring them on. When they bid for a contract to supply 100 million rounds of AK47 ammunition, all their ducks seem to have lined up. But Diveroli, angered by unrevealed information about the rounds, and the dealer’s mark-up, monkeys with the deal. It does not go well.

Content: No sex or nudity but quite a lot of drug taking. We see David Packouz doing some massage jobs (real) and trying unsuccessfully to sell bed sheets to old people’s homes. Once Efraim is on the scene they negotiate deals by phone and on getting an order for thousands of pistols are required to drive across Iraq to Baghdad with them in the back of a truck. At an arms fair in Las Vegas David falls in with Henry an arms dealer banned by the US since he is on a terrorist list. Thereafter they spend a lot of time in the murky underbelly of Albania dealing with the ammunition. Throughout David’s relationship with his girlfriend, now a mother, is on or off.

A View: The critics were divided about this outing, those who did not like it mainly objecting to its moral ambiguity, since at no time do the exploits of the duo appear to be dishonest or unacceptable. Any doubts that we might have are only voiced by Iz, David’s girlfriend. There is quite a bit of excitement, the high point of the film probably the drive across the desert, so it is lightly downhill from there on. I don’t do stars or standard of one to ten, but I would suggest that it might be a view for nothing.

Additional Info: Efraim Diveroli sued the studio, but David Packouz seems to have embraced the experience, appearing as a singer in an early scene, and being photographed with the stars.