War Dogs
Warner Bros. | Release Date: August 19, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
21
Mixed:
12
Negative:
8
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
VarietyOwen GleibermanAug 16, 2016
War Dogs marks a key turning point for Phillips. After all these years of yocks, it’s his first true grown-up movie, and it’s a nimble, gripping, and terrific one, with plenty of laughs, only now they’re rooted in the reality of fear, and in behavior that’s authentically scurrilous. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 16, 2016
This is a solid example of the Sobering Comedy, where we laugh consistently at the madness onscreen, all the while lamenting how it’s rooted in real-world reality. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 25, 2016
War Dogs is cocked with an irreverent pedigree and loaded with the genius teaming of Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as high rolling gun runners making up everything as they go. It's a splendid mismatch, physically and tempermentally, folded into a screenplay that's only occasionally as razored as it might be. Read full review
80
The New York TimesNeil GenzlingerAug 18, 2016
[Todd Phillips] delivers an entertaining tale, especially when one or both men have to travel from their home base in Florida to overseas hot spots to correct their ineptitude. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 18, 2016
War Dogs is that rare contemporary comedy that knows how to make a laugh stick in your throat. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonAug 18, 2016
Working from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Stephen Chin and Jason Smilovic, Phillips delivers a film that raises provocative questions about the economic imperatives of war while masquerading as a buddy comedy. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezAug 18, 2016
Phillips keeps the movie funny and riotous without glamorizing his characters’ misdeeds. The film is a comedy, but it’s never trivial, and the filmmakers don’t let the government’s participation in what transpired slip by unnoticed. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesJohn HartlAug 16, 2016
The whole may be less than its parts, but the parts are pretty impressive. Read full review
75
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthAug 16, 2016
While War Dogs won’t go down as one of the great films about misconduct on a national level, it’s undeniably a decent enough popcorn ride. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'HehirAug 17, 2016
Not only is War Dogs a surprisingly well-told tale in the classic American rags-to-riches-to-rags mode. It’s also a mordant morality fable with a genuine heart of darkness. (Plus, it has one hell of a soundtrack, matching its moods to an array of classic rock and hip-hop tunes in the Martin Scorsese vein.) Read full review
70
ScreenCrushMatt SingerAug 16, 2016
Superficially, the movie looks a lot like past Phillips comedies about men behaving badly, with dirty jokes and wacky hijinks galore. But War Dogs is more critical of its protagonists’ behavior, and there’s plenty of sad commentary about the state of modern America. Read full review
70
New York Daily NewsEthan SacksAug 16, 2016
War Dogs may not reach "The Big Short" levels of resonance, but it clearly channels that Golden Globe-winning dramedy's newsreel aesthetic and lampooning of the Bush administration's policies. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyAug 16, 2016
Hardly inexperienced at playing belligerent, outrageous and offensive a-holes, Hill offers a definitive account of one here, to which Teller can only play the blander, if useful, second fiddle who has to try, and try again, to stand up to the gruff bully. Read full review
67
The Film StageJohn FinkAug 18, 2016
Despite feeling too familiar, as far as late-summer comedies go, it’s hard to deny War Dogs is entertaining and skillfully crafted, playing fast and loose with the actual story, while remaining politically middle of the road. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 17, 2016
Whenever War Dogs plods, close your eyes and count the seconds. Hill’s next deranged little giggle will be along shortly to pick you up. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 17, 2016
A lot of what makes War Dogs work comes down to Hill, who is operating at maximum density here physically (he reportedly gained weight specifically for the role) but whose unhinged charisma also anchors the movie. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 21, 2016
The problem with War Dogs isn’t the dark humor nor is it the cynically accurate deconstruction of military procurement and corruption. The lack of dynamism and depth in the characters is what hamstrings this production. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 19, 2016
Moving within its wild and wacky and improbably true scenarios (some of them, anyway) are people you don't really want to know. Stop the presses: War makes people rich. Stop the movie: These people, who cares? Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzAug 18, 2016
Phillips delivers a mostly by-the-book rise-and-fall saga of two bros in way over their heads, complete with ostentatious title cards that, instead of subtly addressing the film’s themes of greed and jealousy, only hammer the moral lessons with the grace of a rusty Kalashnikov. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 18, 2016
Hill’s braying-bro performance is indelible. Unfortunately. Go ahead, try to forget his more-more-more grin as he fires away, testing those Chinese bullets. He’s so grotesque you can’t take your eyes off of him. He’s also so grotesque you really want to. Read full review
63
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 17, 2016
The film is loaded with a gripping plot and enjoyably sketchy characters but hobbled by an uneven tone that ricochets between zany comedy and serious crime thriller. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonDave CalhounAug 22, 2016
War Dogs simply doesn’t dig deeply enough into the duo’s personalities to be more than a fitfully entertaining escapist spin on a ripped-from-the-headlines yarn. Read full review
60
EmpireJohn NugentAug 22, 2016
Buoyed by riveting lead performances, and driven by a compelling real-life story, this is proof that Phillips can handle grown-up material. All without a naked Ken Jeong. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghAug 18, 2016
There’s a limit to how much patience one has for spending time with terrible people living large. But for all the lackluster familiarity of the film’s style, the story is too interesting, too baffling to deny. Read full review
60
Village VoiceChris PackhamAug 16, 2016
The film’s breezy drive and bursts of comic energy largely divert attention from the flatness of its world and characters. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 19, 2016
War Dogs ends up being no better than its protagonists at delivering the goods. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyAug 17, 2016
Despite all the time War Dogs spends with these two characters, it never develops them past the initial impression that one is basically a good guy and that the other is bad news incarnate. Read full review
58
IndieWireDavid EhrlichAug 16, 2016
Hill embodies everything that’s best about the film around him: He’s funny, daft and broken in a way that’s more fun to gawk at than it is to fix. In a story that’s supposedly about the payoffs and perils of taking big risks, he’s the only one who puts his money where his mouth is. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 18, 2016
In the end, there’s no outrage in War Dogs — no lacerating insight, no gonzo satiric energy, nothing more than warmed-over cynicism and some mild titters at the spectacle of boys being boys under uniquely deadly circumstances. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter HartlaubAug 18, 2016
A solid piece of in-the-moment entertainment that fails in its attempt to be something more. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzAug 17, 2016
War Dogs is a film about horrible people that refuses to own the horribleness. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 17, 2016
Tone is tough when you’re snickering at “gun nuts” while you live the good life off underhanded ways of selling them. The movie takes swipes at Bush era bungling and corruption while reveling in it, because, well, these guys had fun doing it? Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 16, 2016
When Phillips’s regular ace Bradley Cooper shows up—as a scowling war profiteer—it just feels like stunt casting and a missed opportunity for levity. Read full review
38
ObserverOliver JonesAug 24, 2016
Scorsese’s movie did something crucial that this one doesn’t: it told the truth as it knew it. Honesty, or at least some version of it, would have been a very good place for War Dogs to start. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 16, 2016
The movie coasts on a blase, easygoing highway of cynicism regarding how America conducts its business of war. Despite all the Martifications and Scorsese-ing, we're left with virtually nothing, except the feeling that a pretty good anecdote has been inflated into a bubble-headed American Dream morality tale. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 18, 2016
War Dogs stays at arm’s length from the subjects, afraid to implicate us in the pleasures and prosperity of their rise, thus making their fall seem distant, puny and unaffecting. Read full review
25
New York PostKyle SmithAug 18, 2016
After an hour or so, when the would-be comedy War Dogs finally gets around to a point to focus on, it’s stale ammunition that’s been sitting in a dusty Albanian warehouse for 40 years. I assume the movie got its jokes from the same place. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineEric HendersonAug 17, 2016
The film is unrepentantly cynical when it comes to the global business of warmongering, but proves unsurprisingly earnest when it comes to the lure of the American dream. Read full review
25
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 16, 2016
This airless, laugh-less true story about 20-something wheeler-dealers who became arms salesmen during the Bush-Cheney invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan has no point of view, nor anything to say about war or commerce or even 20-somethings who wheel and deal. Read full review
16
MTV NewsAmy NicholsonAug 25, 2016
Phillips has made a copy of a copy, a brotastic toast to capitalism that steals from all the other movies that stole from Scarface and Goodfellas. Read full review
16
ConsequenceRandall ColburnAug 16, 2016
It’s vacuous, ugly, unfunny, and, somehow, not a satire. It might be the worst movie of the year. Read full review
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