War Dogs

"A growing number of films are easy to group together as post-2010 examinations of the American Dream in practice. They've achieved extraordinary results with examples like The Wolf of Wall St, The Bling Ring, The Big Short and Spring Breakers, and average results with Pain & Gain."

"With the 'Hangover' trilogy behind him, director Todd Phillips has made his first terrific movie for grown-ups, starring Miles Teller and Jonah Hill in a true-life tale of hip-geek arms dealers."

"War Dogs is insufficient with these two characters (or maybe it's these two actors), who are neither hapless and schmucky enough to sustain laughs nor venal enough to get us rooting against them."

"Might come with a pre-title claiming it is "based on a true story" – and it is – but in much the same way as a Friday night kebab is "based on" a cow."

"Phillips, also a co-writer on this mishegoss, directed this tired, lumbering, flaccid story of arms-dealing rascals as though hoping to be mistaken for Martin Scorsese - all freeze frames, voice-overs and classic rock."

"The filmmaking is surprisingly lazy, even listless, stuffed with obvious music cues and unnecessary chapter breaks that merely add to the lurching, episodic rhythm."

"Fun enough, as late-summer studio comedies go."

"War Dogs is a rise-and-fall narrative, and while it's genuinely shocking to see the scale of the military-industrial complex from the actual shop floor, there's not nearly as much condemnation as you might expect."

"There's plenty of darkly funny moments, but this is a largely serious movie about an entirely serious subject."

"War Dogs is an unexpected success. It's an unconventional crime narrative told with biting humour and a flippant attitude that ironically make its critiques even more devastating."