War Dogs follows the story of massage therapist David Packouz (played by Miles Teller), struggling to support his pregnant girlfriend. Worried about the future, David meets up with his old high school friend Efraim Diveroli (played by Jonah Hill), an arms dealer for the U.S. Army who makes David an offer to become an international arms dealer. The duo exploits a government initiative that allows small businesses to bid on military contracts and finds themselves landing a $300 million deal to supply Afghan forces. The film was met with mixed reviews, with many enjoying how the writing and performances, especially from Hill, managed to make serious real-world events more palatble through the tactical use of comedy.
Directed by Todd Phillips, known for films like Old School and Starsky & Hutch, War Dogs is a comedy crime film that brings arms dealing during the Iraq war to life without the film losing its light-heartedness. While War Dogs tells a captivating story about the intersection between civilians and the U.S. Government, many have asked: is War Dogs really based on a true story? Some contents of the film may seem beyond belief, but the reality is that the overall plot and main characters are indeed based on the true story of David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli.
War Dogs Screenplay Based on a Rolling Stone Article
War Dogs managed to take serious topics and expose them, while still maintaining a good sense of humor. The film’s screenplay, written by Phillips, Stephen Chin, and Jason Smilovic was originally based on a 2011 Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson entitled “Arms and the Dudes” as well as notes from real-life Efraim Diveroli’s memoir Once a Gun Runner. The article was later expanded into a novel by Guy Lawson called Arms and the Dudes: How Three Stoners From Miami Beach Became the Most Unlikely Gunrunners in History, a book for which Lawson has received much praise for his well-researched exposé. While some scenes in the film seem unbelievable, some of those scenes are the ones that actually happened, including the pair’s encounter with weed before meeting with the Department of Defense.
Some Events Were Fictitious for the Sake of Filmmaking
As with many films that claim to be “based on a true story,” that phrase has become more lenient with what is real and what is fictitious for the sake of entertainment in the film industry. While the overall plot for the film is based on the true story of the real-life Efraim and David, War Dogs has been criticized for a number of events being highly dramatized. That said, many of the fictionalized events in the film, like the duo’s drive through Iraq, were based on other events and even had inspiration drawn from screenwriter Stephen Chin’s own experiences overseas. Many in the film industry are willing to overlook inaccuracies for the sake of entertainment, and that is the case for Phillips’ War Dogs, which manages to expose the protagonist’s behavior, criticizing the state of modern America, all while maintaining the same humor from Phillips’ previous films.
Real-Life David Packouz Made a Cameo Appearance
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While biographical films often separate themselves from their subjects, the opposite can be said about War Dogs. Real-life David Packouz makes a cameo appearance in the film as a singer/guitarist performing at a nursing home who is seen on-screen for a brief moment singing the song “Don’t Fear the Reaper”, a rather comedic song to choose to sing in a nursing home. Since his exploits as an arms dealer, real-life Packouz has gone on to have a career in music, inventing a guitar pedal drum machine known as the BeatBuddy, and becoming the CEO of music tech company Singular Sound. While Packouz was the only person from the real-life events to make an appearance in War Dogs, it’s a fun cameo that also proves that the screenwriters did their research, even getting in contact with a direct source.