War Dogs

"War is an economy," the black comedy War Dogs declares early on, vividly making its point by illustrating that it costs nearly $20,000 to equip the average American soldier. Multiply that figure by two million, the approximate number of US military personnel deployed to fight the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's clear there's a lot of money changing hands. But just who has their hands on it?

Well, there are huge defence contractors that get the bulk of the big deals. But as War Dogs points out, someone willing to hustle can make a very healthy living feeding off "crumbs" - smaller deals on which any ambitious operator can bid.

In this particular case, based on actual events, two friends in their 20s were among the most successful in the business, working their way up the ladder until they made millions selling weapons and ammunition to the armed forces. And then, of course, everything went pear-shaped.

War Dogs may seem an unlikely type of project for Todd Phillips, the director of the Hangover trilogy, but the raucous humour of those movies was tinged with darkness, danger and an interest in how badly men can behave before lines are irrevocably crossed.

And that's the case here as well - young "gunrunners" Efraim (Jonah Hill) and David (Miles Teller) are bold and cocky early on, drawing inspiration from Scarface as their deals and their paycheques become bigger. Efraim was the mover and shaker, a master manipulator with a gift for shaping every situation to his advantage. David, an underachiever who needed to improve his lot in life when he unexpectedly became a father, was initially Efraim's employee but soon became his partner in a firm that landed an incredibly lucrative deal to supply the military with 100 million rounds of ammo.

But when the deal goes from vaguely immoral to definitely illegal, it not only places the partnership in jeopardy, it puts David's life at risk.

The latest in a string of films depicting men engaging in morally murky practices for fun and profit (The Wolf Of Wall Street is probably the heavyweight champ of the genre at this stage), War Dogs does a solid job of presenting the thrill of flirting with illegality and immorality.

Teller's the straight man here, and he's got just enough presence to make an underwritten character a suitable audience surrogate. But Hill has the juicier role, and he makes the most of it, playing up the brash, outrageous aspects of Efraim but all the while subtly revealing the ruthless and malicious wheeler-dealer under the surface.