Known for outrageous, sometimes mean-spirited comedies like “The Hangover,” “Due Date” and “Old School,” director Todd Phillips has been itching to make something dramatic in these last few years. He’s been slowly moving towards a darker, nastier edge in comedies too as evinced by “Due Date,” which featured Robert Downey Jr. spitting in the face of an adorable French bulldog, and “The Hangover Part III,” easily the darkest of the series. Phillips almost directed “The Gambler” with Mark Wahlberg and he’s had other dramatic irons in the fire too.
But it appears he’s finally gotten there in “War Dogs,” the arms-dealing film starring Jonah Hill and Miles Teller. Granted, it looks like a comedy in the same twisted way that Scorsese’s “The Wolf Of Wall Street” was hilarious, but morally abject.
Based on a true story, “Arms & The Dudes” follows two friends in their early 20s (Hill and Teller) living in Miami during the Iraq War who exploit a little-known government...
