57
Metascore
41 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90VarietyOwen GleibermanVarietyOwen GleibermanWar 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.
- 88Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperChicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperThis 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.
- 75The PlaylistKevin JagernauthThe PlaylistKevin JagernauthWhile 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.
- 70The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyThe Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyHardly 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.
- 70New York Daily NewsEthan SacksNew York Daily NewsEthan SacksWar 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.
- 60Village VoiceChris PackhamVillage VoiceChris PackhamThe film’s breezy drive and bursts of comic energy largely divert attention from the flatness of its world and characters.
- 58IndieWireDavid EhrlichIndieWireDavid EhrlichHill 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.
- 38Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsThe 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.
- 25TheWrapAlonso DuraldeTheWrapAlonso DuraldeThis 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.
- 16ConsequenceRandall ColburnConsequenceRandall ColburnIt’s vacuous, ugly, unfunny, and, somehow, not a satire. It might be the worst movie of the year.