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War Dogs

Poster from TMDB

EntityQ19872548· pop 32· linked from 104 articles

Also known as Arms and the Dudes

2016 film by Todd Phillips

Film · TMDB

6.9

Based on the true story of two young men, David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.

Released: 2016-08-18114 minDir: Todd PhillipsComedy, Crime, DramaBudget: $50.0MBox office: $86.2M

Cast

  • Miles Teller as David Packouz
  • Jonah Hill as Efraim Diveroli
  • Ana de Armas as Iz
  • Bradley Cooper as Henry Girard
  • Kevin Pollak as Ralph Slutzky
  • Patrick St. Esprit as Captain Phillip Santos

Themes

  • corruption
  • smuggling (contraband)
  • iraq
  • rise and fall
  • drugs
  • american exceptionalism

This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.

Ratings

IMDb

7.1/10

294,013 votes

Rotten Tomatoes

62%

Metacritic

57/100

Year
2016
Runtime
114 min
Genres
Biography, Comedy, Crime
Rated
R
Awards
3 nominations total

via OMDb · IMDb

Key facts

Directed by
Todd Phillips
Screenplay by
Stephen Chin Todd Phillips Jason Smilovic
Based on
"Arms and the Dudes", by Guy Lawson
Produced by
Mark Gordon Todd Phillips Bradley Cooper
Starring
Jonah Hill Miles Teller Ana de Armas Bradley Cooper
Cinematography
Lawrence Sher
Edited by
Jeff Groth
Music by
Cliff Martinez
Production companies
RatPac-Dune Entertainment Joint Effort The Mark Gordon Company
Distributed by
Warner Bros. Pictures
Release dates
August 3, 2016 ( 2016-08-03 ) ( New York City ) August 19, 2016 ( 2016-08-19 ) (United States)
Running time
114 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$40 million
Box office
$86.4 million

via Wikipedia infobox

~9 min read

Encyclopedic overview

War Dogs is a 2016 American black comedy crime film directed by Todd Phillips, and written by Phillips, Jason Smilovic and Stephen Chin, based on the 2011 Rolling Stone article "Arms and the Dudes" by Guy Lawson (which was later expanded into a novel, also titled Arms and the Dudes). It stars Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Ana de Armas, and Bradley Cooper, who also produced. The film follows two arms dealers, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz, who receive a U.S. Army contract to supply ammunitions for the Afghan National Army worth approximately $300 million.

The film, which features an unreliable narrator and is labeled as being "based on a true story", is heavily fictionalized and dramatized, with some of its events, such as the duo driving through Iraq, either invented or based on other events, such as Chin's own experiences. Additionally, Diveroli claimed, but later dismissed, the film was falsely marketed as a true story, and stole material from his 2016 memoir Once a Gun Runner.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “War Dogs” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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