Miami, 2005. A broke massage therapist, David Packouz dreams of more. At a funeral, he is reunited with Efraim Diveroli, his best friend from high school. Trained by his uncle in the sale of arms, Efraim decides to create his own company, AEY, which takes advantage of American government contracts during the war in Iraq. When he learns that his girlfriend is pregnant, David accepts Efraim’s crazy idea that he should become his partner. Soon they are enjoying the good life, but it gets complicated when the deals become increasingly risky...

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After three installments in the more or less memorable Hangover franchise and Due Date with Robert Downey Jr. in between, director Todd Phillips is in post-success mode. Camouflaged as a comedy, this based-on-true-events “comedy, crime, drama” (IMDb) centers on the rise and fall of two Americans who have bitten off more than they can chew. Phillips seems sometimes to try his hand at being Scorsese (former director of Jonah Hill, who again does his wacky bit), but the script is sorely lacking in soul and depth, offering nothing new. War Dogs is less a movie and more like a sequence of scenes already seen elsewhere, such as the long end where the dream collapses to a pop music soundtrack, during which a narrator explains the duo’s fall as the various characters are arrested.