September 9, 2016 -- Just a couple of guys out to make a buck end up in some very dangerous situations in this wild based-on-fact account of two old friends who end up as enemies running guns to the U.S. armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2005, during the Iraq War, David Packouz (played by Miles Teller of “Whiplash”) is making a marginal living as a masseuse to old men when an old friend, Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill of “This is the End”) offers him a job selling weapons to the military. In no time at all David is making more money than he ever thought possible. Life is good.

Then, it gets even better when David runs across a huge arms deal called “The Afghan Deal,” a $300 million dollar deal to supply weapons to troops in Afghanistan, including 100 million rounds of machine gun bullets. David and Efraim, through their business, AEY, aided by a silent partner and a shady gun runner named Henry Girard (Bradley Cooper of “American Sniper”) bid on the contract and get it.

Things go wrong from the start, as David and Efraim have to cook their books to look legit to the bookkeepers at the Pentagon, then they run into massive problems with suppliers in Eastern Europe. David is left to solve the problems himself, while Efraim stays back in the U.S. pulling some shady deals of his own.

The situation deteriorates until David finds himself on the wrong end of a gun in a deal gone bad. David finds out that his old friend has cut him out of his share of the money from the latest arms sale and has also put his life in danger. Efraim has shafted too many people though, and that gets both him and David in trouble with the law.

The anything goes world of gun running shown in the movie includes a wild chase across the “Triangle of Death” in Iraq as David and Efraim run a truck load of guns across the desert, menaced by corrupt border guards and chased by heavily armed crooks. Efraim comes across as smart, ruthless and fearless, while David comes across as desperate and greedy enough to get in over his head. These two characters are fascinating.

This is a very entertaining tale of greed, corruption, lawlessness and danger in the international arms trade, but more than that, it is a tale of two old friends whose greed leads them to become enemies. It is a bit like a modern take on “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2016 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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