War Dogs Trailer (2016)

Trailer for War Dogs, starring Miles Teller and Jonah Hill.

Based on a true story, War Dogs follows two friends in their early 20s (Hill and Teller) living in Miami during the first Iraq War who exploit a little-known government initiative that allows small businesses to bid on U.S. Military contracts. Starting small, they begin raking in big money and are living the high life. But the pair gets in over their heads when they land a 300 million dollar deal to arm the Afghan Military—a deal that puts them in business with some very shady people, not the least of which turns out to be the U.S. Government.

While this buddy comedy seems to do just fine with Miles Teller and Jonah Hill at the helm, the originally pairing sought out was Jesse Eisenberg and Shia LaBeouf.

Based on a true story, but what is left out is the fact that the protagonists in the film don't have the family connections that the true-life arms dealers had. The duo were known pot heads whose family owned many gun stores across the United States.

While we're not sure if it was on purpose, Jonah Hill packed on the pounds for this role. After all the work he did to finally lose (some of) the weight, one can't help but be surprised he was so willing to pack it back on and then some; especially since it doesn't feel entirely necessary for War Dogs. In short--Chubby would have been fine.

I was a big fan of Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage, and that film couldn't help but be part-tragic, so I [of course] immediately love this. Pack on the humor and some charming leads and gun running becomes funny again. As mentioned in the fun facts, I'm not exactly understanding why Jonah Hill felt it was necessary to be obese for the role. Sort of like Russell Crowe in Body of Lies, but I digress.

The War Dogs trailer is great and I love how it starts by proclaiming how these young guys have made a huge business mistake with their Pentagon contract offer. When I got into the program business, I did the very same thing for an Airline company -- I can't say who -- looking to hire my services.

To solve their dilemma, our protagonists become full-blown gun runners and, that being said, can't help but run into a number of er, shenanigans. With so many misguided adventures backed up by witty one-liners, War Dogs is sure to be a ton of fun.

I also want to throw kudos to the trailer's sound editor, who was able to blend the sound of an automatic weapon with a bill counter. Awesome, and once again brings me back to a scene from Lord of War, where we see an AK-47 -- which also happened to be this film's secret working title --  firing rounds to the sound of a cash register. Is this a nod to that older film about gun running? We'd like to think so.