Indeed, it’s the actor’s finest effort since The Wolf Of Wall Street, in which he delivered one of the greatest comedic performances of the decade so far. While there are fine performances in War Dogs by Teller, and Cuban-Spanish actress Ana de Armas as his wife Iz, the heart of the film is the powerhouse turn by Hill. Trump’s not a politician, so maybe three cycles from now some genius, great person will enter because Trump did it, but actually be somebody brilliant.” Obama’s great, but he was always a politician. All we’ve had for the last however many years are the Clintons and the Bushes. I’m like, ‘You do?!’ The one good thing you could say about Trump, if you look at it with an open mind, is that he has made it possible to not be part of the political system, and enter in a serious way. “It was like someone saying they have a unicorn. “Jonah and I were talking last night, and he mentioned that he knows someone who does,” says Phillips. It’s just horrifying to be honest with you.” Americans travel with a lot of baggage – we carry the country with us – and you’re probably smart enough to know that not everyone is represented by Donald Trump, or gun nuts. “It’s particularly embarrassing when you go overseas. “It’s embarrassing,” he replies, shaking his head. What does Phillips make of the whole Trump phenomenon? I mean, that’s what Donald Trump is running on, even though he couldn’t be more part of the system.” “Whether it’s The Big Short or Money Monster, or even this movie, people are making films about that idea. Also, there is a thing now, at least in the States, where people are starting to realise that the system is rigged. I do think that as we get more superhero movies and sequels, there is a certain audience who crave something real. Russell, for example, makes great truth-is-stranger-than-fiction movies. Even the movies that I love in real life, they often have that element. “I had a company back then called Stranger Than Fiction, and it’s always been something that’s attracted me. “Well, I actually started my career making documentaries,” notes Phillips. When you consider that some of the finest films of 2016 have been documentaries, and that American Crime Story – based on the OJ Simpson case – has been the best TV show of the year, stories about real life events have definitely been in the ascendant of late. War Dogs was adapted from a Rolling Stone article by journalist Guy Lawson, which Phillips read whilst on a plane to Bangkok to film The Hangover Part III. It wasn’t so much about fascination with guns.” “They think they’re gangsters, that it’s their movie and so on. “All the kids I knew who grew up in Miami have this weird thing about the film,” he adds. It was filmed in Miami, and not a lot of films were, so Scarface was their movie, it belonged to them. In particular, if you know anyone who grew up in Miami, which I do, it’s a very interesting movie. In terms of Efraim’s fascination with Scarface, that’s different – every kid in the world is fascinated with Scarface. Efraim took to it more than David, who doesn’t touch a gun in the movie. “I don’t think they had an affinity with guns. “These guys could have been selling potato chips to the government,” says the friendly and hugely engaging Phillips, between drags on an e-cigarette, in his room at Claridges in London. While the film does manage to convey some of the reasons behind America’s dysfunctional relationship with guns – in particular thanks to Diveroli’s Scarface fixation – the director maintains that it isn’t a comment on the hot topic of weapons control in the US. War Dogs, the latest film from Hangover trilogy director Todd Phillips, tells the extraordinary true story of Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz (played by, respectively, Jonah Hill and Miles Teller), two friends from Miami who managed to become major international arms dealers, courtesy of public contract auctions on the Pentagon website.
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