Walking in John Wick's footsteps

   

  If you've seen the trailer, you already know that Keanu Reeves appears in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, a spinoff set at the same time as the third Wick installment took place. But true to its title, Ballerina brings a woman to its center. 

   Ana de Armas plays Eve, the woman destined to pick up the Wick mantle and perhaps carry the franchise forward. I wish the movie had done more to distinguish Eve from her predecessor, but Ballerina does well enough in setting the stage for more deftly choreographed violence. 

    Story-wise, director Len Wiseman keeps things simple. Eve wants to avenge the murder of her father. A member of the Ruska Roma assassins team, Dad wanted his daughter to live free of bloodshed. That being the case, he should have died in a different movie.

     Once Daddy's gone, Ian McShane's Winston Scott introduces Eve to the head of Ruska Roma, a role reprised by Anjelica Huston, who brings blood-red lipstick and sadistic relish to her job as head of an institution that combines ballet instruction with lessons in the assassin's art.  Eve becomes a trainee.     

       Early in her training, Huston's character tells Eve she must learn to fight like a girl. Eve must use her small size and limited power to advantage -- or some such. Despite the advice, much of the fighting resembles what Reeves has done in the Wick series -- although when comparing de Armas to Reeves, she comes in second. How could she not? 

     Still, de Armas proves convincingly serious; Eve displays no second thoughts about her job's brutal requirements. 

     A character called the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) supplies the movie's villainy.  The Chancellor runs a snowy mountain town where his group of assassins try to live "normal" lives. Unlike Ruska Roma, Byrne's group doesn't kill for money. Its members murder for kicks.

     After the battle on the steps of Sacre-Coeur in Chapter 4 -- a mini-masterpiece of action -- it's difficult for the spinoff to come up with an equivalent, but Ballerina tries. Eve wields a wicked ice skate. And a battle involving dueling flame throwers makes no bones about lighting a big-time action fire.

      Before it's done, Ballerina introduces some old standbys (the late Lance Reddick's concierge, for example), and throws Eve into fight after fight.

      Whatever else it accomplishes, Ballerina proves fluent in the Wick language, ably using a vocabulary composed of bullets, grenades, axes, knives, fists, and swords. Now, let's see if it can expand what it has to say.

"Blonde' tells Monroe's story -- or does it?

 It doesn’t take long to realize that two voices speak in Blonde, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’s novel about the life of Marilyn Monroe: One voice belongs to the dramatic creation of an iconic movie star. We’ll get to the second voice later. 

 Monroe died in 1961 of a drug overdose. She was 36 and her death spawned theories of foul play that some believe penetrated the upper reaches of American power.

 In Blonde, Ana de Armas plays Monroe with so much wrung-out emotion you may find yourself hoping that the actress was able to leave the work behind at the end of a day’s shooting. 

  De Armas captures Monroe's whispery, girlish voice and her naiveté, as well as the angry eruptions that developed late in her career when she thought she was being dissed by the studios and by directors who treated her as a joke.

  It's one hell of a performance.

   A quick digression: For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, Blonde has been given an NC-17 rating, the first Netflix film to be categorized as unsuitable for viewers under the age of 17. It has nudity and sex scenes, but ....

    I don’t want to get into an argument about ratings here.  Blonde has an NC-17 rating. Let's accept it and move on.

    The second major voice speaking in Blonde belongs to director Andrew Dominik, who works in an overly stylized fashion, sometimes offering surreal strokes. An example of the surreal: A doll-like representation of the fetus the studios force Monroe to abort serves as an eerie emblem of irreparable loss.

    It's more jarring than telling, too self-consciously literal.

    A series of flashpoint episodes make it clear that Dominik, who hasn’t made a movie in 10 years, seriously tried to meet the challenge of what surely will be a much-scrutinized effort, given Monroe's prevalence as a persistent figure in both art and culture.

  But is Dominik telling the story from Monroe’s disorienting perspective — or is it his disorienting perspective? In either case, Monroe’s inner life can seem so tormented it may drive viewers crazy just as it supposedly did Monroe.

    The movie opens with a sustained depiction of child abuse by Marilyn’s whacko mother (Julianne Nicholson in a frighteningly vivid performance). Harrowing scenes of mommy abuse pave the way for one of the movie's amplified themes. Monroe, who never met her father, had big-time Daddy issues. 

   Thus prepped, we watch as Dominik mixes black-and-white footage with color and Monroe’s life unfolds in a series of purportedly telling vignettes.

    Movies such as Niagara, Seven Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot are highlighted when they allow Dominik to make points about the Hollywood-created fictional character Monroe purportedly became. Mired in frustrated need, she becomes untethered from her "real" self.

    The men in Monroe's life exemplify abusive or failed love. Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) appears as a character named the Ex-Athlete. Playwright Arthur Miller is called The Playwright and is brought to life by Adrien Brody in a canny piece of work that captures Miller’s intellect, curiosity, tenderness, and betrayal. The Playwright used Monroe's life to feed his writing.

    Both marriages end badly. 

    The oddest of Monroe's relationships is depicted as an early threesome involving Monroe, Charlie Chaplin Jr. (Xavier Samuel) and Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). Dominik treats this trio as an emblem of isolated innocence with hints of darkness. The three supposedly thought of themselves as bound by fate.

    Sound look hooey? Well that’s how I took it, too.

    Other notable characters crop up in the movie's cavalcade of bad men. Actor Caspar Phillipson appears in what might be the most morally degenerate depiction of JFK (called only The President) to date. 

    Not only does The President exploit Monroe sexually, he does it during a phone call while a Secret Service agent sits at an open bedroom door. To reach the president's bedroom, Monroe is guided past a humiliating gauntlet of POTUS's staff. 

    Revelations about Monroe and the Kennedys are hardly new but Dominik seems to want us to feel the full measure of Monroe’s degradation at the hands of powerful men.

    This exploitative world gives us a Monroe of limited personal agency. It’s as if she landed in LaLa Land for no other reason than to be exploited, a pawn in a cruel image-making game. 

     Dominik puts Monroe’s pain on display and at two hours and 46 minutes, the movie increasingly feels like a chore, its length encouraging a numbed tune-out.

      Perhaps Blonde will rekindle interest and re-evaluation of Monroe’s work or maybe her life will be further pushed into a mold in which the carnal aspirations of a ravenous Hollywood  power culture prove perpetually ruinous.

     Whatever the movie’s fate, Blonde — in the immediacy of its moment — can be an ordeal; flashes of filmmaking brilliance and committed acting notwithstanding, I can’t think of a recent movie that I was more eager to see end.

    

Daniel Craig's admirable departure from Bond

   Remember when we didn't take Bond movies seriously? Time was all we wanted from a Bond movie was nifty gadgets, charm, beautiful women, one-liners, and an out-sized villain, preferably working with Spectre.

  That's why the series could survive the switch from Sean Connery (still the best Bond) to Roger Moore to Pierce Brosnan to Timothy Dalton — and that's not even a complete list. The point: Fulfill the formula, add a few new wrinkles, and we were happy.

  Daniel Craig, the latest Bond, is about to pass the torch to another Bond, which greatly raises anticipation for No Time to Die, Craig's last swing at 007. We already know that Craig’s Bond has the power of a clenched fist. His is not a winking Bond, happy to let us in on the joke. 

   Craig has given us a Bond for our distraught, deracinated time, a bond minus joviality and bonhomie — but now with the capability of loving, and, thus, being hurt.

   Some of No Time To Die qualifies as old-style fun. Moreover, the movie's prologue and early scenes totally satisfy our craving for more Bond; i.e., they're full scenic glamor and incredible action.

    A quick summary of the set-up: An assassin's attempts to kill the wife and daughter of a man who slaughtered his family. The movie then leaps ahead to find Bond in love and vacationing in a rocky Italian village. His companion: the daughter (Lea Seydoux) who was spared by the killer in the movie's opening.

    The movie eventually begins unfolding a complicated plot involving a deadly biological weapon that can be tailored to target specific individuals -- or to wreak mass havoc.

   I don't mean to suggest that I didn't enjoy the rest of this overly long Bond, which clocks in at two hours and 43 minutes and ends with a sense of resignation that fits our moment of national and international fatigue.

   Director Cary Joji Fukunaga guides Craig's final bond to a noble end and provides enough of everything else that we want from a Bond movie to make the journey worth taking.

    No Bond movie is complete without seeing Bond in formal wear. He turns up in a tuxedo in Jamaica where he encounters a glamorous spy played by Ana de Armas. 

    Critics once argued that every Bond movie rises and falls with its villain. A good villain meant a good Bond -- no matter who donned  the 007 mantle.

   This time, Rami Malek upholds the banner of evil, opting to make Lyutsifer Safin a soft-spoken man with a bad complexion and an unquenchable taste for vengeance. Lyutsifer’s ambitions are big, but his personality seems small.

   Muscular and sometimes brutal, Craig receives able support from a large cast. Christoph Waltz makes a brief appearance as Blofeld. Jeffrey Wright portrays Felix Leiter,  CIA man, and friend of Bond.

    Ralph Fiennes continues to bring weight and gravity to the role of M. Naomi Harris again turns up as the ever-loyal Moneypenny, and Ben Whishaw returns as Q, the inventor of the gadgetry that gives Bond his advantage and a tech whiz who monitors Bond's moves.

   The movie even adds another 007. Because Bond has retired, MI6 has awarded his 007 designation to Nomi (Lashana Lynch), a newcomer who may gain a foothold for future Bond movies.

   The movie ultimately heads toward a remote island (where else?) from which Lyutsifer plans to launch a world-threatening attack.

    With improvements in budget and special effects, the Bond movies have been able to increase their scale with each new addition, and let's face it, scale has much to do with why we keep going to Bond movies. 

   Fukunaga doesn't shortchange us on locations -- even if we feel that Craig's last turn as Bond has more to do with what the movie is about than any threat Lyutsifer poses.

   For the record, Billie Eilish sings No Time To Die, the song that plays over the opening credits.

  No Time to Die tends to lag a bit around the three-quarter mark and it sometimes feels driven by fumes of determination, but when it's done, No Time to Die has brought Craig's tenure to a strong and worthy conclusion.

Bob's Cinema Diary 6/23/20: 'Babyteeth,' 'Wasp Network,' 'Daddy Issues'

Babyteeth 

Talk about a parental nightmare. Your 16-year-old daughter falls for a 23-year-old drug user without a home. He's tattooed, sports a mullet, and doesn't seem to give a damn about anything. His name is Moses. That's the set-up for director Shannon Murphy's Babyteeth. But wait. There's more. Milla (Eliza Scanlen), the teenager in question, is no ordinary kid. She's got terminal cancer. So Milla's parents (Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn) face a problem. How do you say "no" to a kid who can't ruin her future because she doesn't have one?  Another teenage weepy about a kid with a terminal disease? Not exactly. Working from a screenplay by Rita Kalnejais, Murphy adds whimsical stylistic flourishes and enough emotional realism to upset expectations. A pianist who abandoned her musical career, Mom is about to drown in deep emotional waters. A psychiatrist by trade, Dad is so overcome with trepidation about what looms that at one point he gives himself a shot of morphine. Parental performances are strong but the movie belongs to Scanlen and Toby Wallace.  Wallace gives Moses lots of rough appeal. You never doubt that a good kid lurks beneath Moses' bad-kid surface. Babyteeth is the kind of movie you might approach with dread, but one that turns out to be more creative than you initially might have imagined. None of the characters want to be boxed-in by cliche. If Scanlen's name rings a bell, it might be because she played Beth in Little Women, one of last year's best-received movies.

Wasp Network

If you're looking for a good movie by director Olivier Assayas, you might want to try 2005's Summer Hours. I wish the same could be said for Assay's latest, Wasp Network, now showing on Netflix. Having already teamed with Assayas in 2010's Carlos, Edgar Ramirez plays a Cuban who in the 1990s leaves his wife (Penelope Cruz) and daughter to defect to the US. As we later learn, Ramirez's Rene Gonzalez is part of a Castro-conceived program to infiltrate Miami Cuban circles that carry out oppositional activities against the regime. A muddled narrative brings the so-called Wasp Network program to light, introducing two additional characters. Gael Garcia Bernal portrays team leader Gerardo Hernandez and Wagner Moura portrays a slick operative who takes a Cuban-American wife (Ana de Armas). Assayas seems to be aiming for epic scope, but can't put the pieces of the movie together in a way that staves off confusion. Although she doesn't get as much screen time as the men, Cruz makes a strong impression as a woman wounded by her husband's defection and betrayed by the revolution she avidly supports. The same goes for de Armas, another woman whose life becomes collateral damage as the plot unfolds. The performances are all strong, some of its scenes connect and the movie looks great, but Wasp Network registers as a misfire from a fine director and an extremely good cast.

Daddy Issues
Henrietta (Kimberley Datnow) moves from London to Los Angeles when she's summoned to join the board of her late father's firm. It seems that Henrietta -- who aspires to be a stand-up comic -- once lived with her dad and attended school in LA. That’s convenient because Henrietta has friends from back in the day, which means the movie has a supporting cast. Alice (Alice Carroll Johnson), one of Henrietta’s old pals, tries to convince a small group of reunited friends that she's a successful talent agent. In reality, she's a gay woman trying to make ends meet by providing non-sexual companionship for a benevolent Sugar Daddy who misses his late wife and only seems to want someone with whom he can watch TV. When Henrietta moves into her father's LA house, she learns that Nolan (Tanner Rittenhouse) also lives there. He works for dad's company and developed a relationship in which Dad became a kind of mentor. Henrietta's attempt to reunite with an old boyfriend goes nowhere. Director Laura Holliday never convinced me to care about any of this or to believe that Henrietta had real comedy chops. That would have been fine had Daddy Issues been a movie about the difference between wanting to do stand-up and actually pulling it off. Somewhere, there’s a movie here, but no one seems to have found it.

A visually rich return to the future

What's real and what's not? Blade Runner 2049 wants to know, but it may cause some head scratching..

I'm not one of those people who consult director Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) for philosophical guidance. I liked the movie well enough when I first saw it, but haven't joined the cult of enthusiasts who make regular return visits, often followed by heated debates about what, in the movie, should be taken as real and what shouldn't.

But there's no question that Scott's movie -- based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep -- set the pace for a lot of the dystopian sci-fi that followed in the wake of Blade Runner's noir-flavored foray into a dangerously decaying Los Angeles.

Now comes Blade Runner 2049, set some 30 years after the original. If you're looking for a beautifully realized vision of the world as the filmmakers think it might exist several decades from now, this new edition -- directed by Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) -- works hard to provide it.

Major credit accrues to cinematographer Roger Deakins, who makes ample use of yellow and orange hues to create a world that feels as if its enveloped in poisonous smog. Breathe at your own risk.

The desiccated landscapes of the movie's early going tell us that the world has been drained of its richness, its abundance having been exploited to the point where even a dead tree has become something a novelty. Technology may hold sway, but the Earth has become infertile.

We also learn, from opening title cards, that replicants -- genetically engineered creatures that are indistinguishable from humans -- are designed to be safe and servile. But Blade Runners, those who hunt down and "retire" replicants, still operate, searching for older replicants that had the audacity to make a case for replicant self-determination.

Prior to a screening, publicists read a statement asking critics not to reveal plot points and other surprises. OK, I'm not going to talk much about the plot except to say that it's not always easy to follow the one concocted by writers Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. I'd say that 2049 wants to be a deep-thinking detective story with a replicant hunter named K (Ryan Gosling) sent on a quest to ...

I won't say more, except to note that replicant-related peril puts the entire structure of the society Villeneuve depicts at issue.

Among the film's creations, you'll find Joi (Ana de Armas), an electronically produced holographic woman that adores K and offers no resistance when it comes to fulfilling her role as a fantasy. You'll also see Jared Leto as the head of a company that produces replicants in a performance that's too transparently spectral and weird. Leto's Wallace is served by a ruthless woman (Sylvia Hoeks) who's all business -- and bad business at that.

Even icier than she is on House of Cards, Robin Wright portrays the LAPD big-wig to whom K reports.

Gosling punctuates a purposefully inexpressive performance with small inflections, and -- if you've read anything about the movie -- you know that Harrison Ford returns as Deckard, only in a more worn-out version. The replicant hunter of the first movie evidently has been in hiding for the last 30 years, taking up residence in an abandoned Las Vegas casino where he can watch holographic Elvis projections and we can ponder a few similarities to the work of Stanley Kubrick.

The movie, which has its longueurs, perks up considerably when Ford arrives. I should tell you, though, that most of the time, I found myself in a state in which I seemed to be floating through the story, not really caring where it was going as I awaited the next intriguing bit of visual invention.

In his positive Hollywood Reporter review of 2049, Todd McCarthy astutely pointed out that the "style and tone" of 2049 owes more to Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky (Stalker) than to Scott's original. McCarthy's observation is correct but I wonder whether this approach -- creating an almost expanded sense of time -- doesn't deprive the picture of narrative interest while threatening to turn 2049 into a massive art project with a vision that exists more to be dissected than actually lived in. Food is now produced synthetically. As in the original, cars fly. High tech paraphernalia can be found even in the seedy tenement in which K lives. The ravages of climate change create snowfall in Los Angeles. When Leto's Wallace presides over a room in which a platform is surrounded by water that splays ripples of reflection across walls.

That's another way of saying, Villeneuve doesn't give us much reason to connect emotionally to much of anything in 2049.
I suppose 2049 serves up plenty of fodder for those who wish to philosophize about what's real and what isn't or to ruminate on how artificial intelligence changes our ideas about what it means to be human. But after the movie's sometimes taxing, 164-minute running time, I found that other more immediately pressing needs required attention.

Jabs, no knock-out in this boxing pic

A split-decision on the latest boxing movie, Hands of Stone.

With a drastically exceeding hairline, a thinning crop of gray hair and an almost frail appearance, Robert De Niro finally gives a real performance as legendary trainer Ray Arcel in Hands of Stone, a quick-hitting biopic about Roberto Duran, the Panamanian champion whose career peaked in a ferocious bout with Sugar Ray Leonard.

Venezuelan director Jonathan Jakubowicz presents Duran's story in a series of punchy if familiar episodes. A hungry street kid acquires wealth in the boxing ring, falls into the bloat of dissolution, loses sight of what's important and only finds renewed purpose by realizing that he must once again put on the gloves.

Any director who decides to make a boxing movie inevitably must shadow box with some heavyweight movie history, recent efforts such as Creed and, for contemporary audiences, the touchstone: Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, which featured one of De Niro's greatest performances as boxer Jake LaMotta.

Jakubowicz may have thought that he was expanding the genre simply by focusing on a non-American boxer whose personality was formed in the mean streets of Panama. He also ties Duran's story to tensions between the US and Panama as Panamanians seethe with desire for true independence.

The story's arc generates enough momentum to make Hands of Stone watchable, but I'm not sure that Jakubowicz takes us deep inside Duran's story, which features a raw, energetic performance by Edgar Ramirez (Carlos) as Duran.

Ramirez leaves us with the impression that Duran was a man of recklessly expressed aggression, rage that stemmed from anger at a father who abandoned his family. As an impoverished kid, Duran was motivated by hunger, the kind that comes from missing meals. We're not talking metaphors here.

Much of the training provided by De Niro's Arcel involves trainer and boxer in a tug of war in which Arcel tries to persuade his charge that boxing involves more brain than brawn and that the best fighters employ strategy in their efforts. You need a plan for a fight that goes beyond jumping into the ring and letting the punches fly.

Arcel's approach often chafes against Duran's bravado and impatience, traits that allow him to win the love of a school girl (Ana de Armas) he meets on the streets and whom he sweeps up in a whirlwind courtship.

De Armas evolves from schoolgirl to embittered wife during the course of the movie with Jakubowicz eventually pushing the relationship into a furious, Raging Bull-style confrontation that suggests more than it delivers. It peters out quickly.

Subplots arise, but mostly come across as skimpy. John Turturro plays a New York gangster who wants to control the fight game. Ellen Barkin does what she can with a small and somewhat thankless role as Arcel's wife. With blonde hair and a thick voice, she might be taken for the embodiment of the Bronx, circa 1955.

Ruben Blades signs on as Carlos Eleta, a wealthy Panamanian who becomes Duran's manager. He handles the money end of Duran's career; Arcel does the training. Elena shoulders most of the blame for agreeing with promoter Don King (a credible Reg. E. Cathey) to a rematch that didn't allow the hard-partying Duran enough time to get himself back into shape.

Sugar Ray Leonard (Usher) comes across as a more stylized boxer who, at first, allows Duran to get inside his head. Duran insults Sugar Ray's wife with a crude taunt. It's all part of the fight game that culminates with a Las Vegas rematch in which Duran famously quit in the middle of the bout.

If you're hoping to come away with a greater insight into what made Duran throw in the towel, you may be disappointed. He knew he wasn't prepared? He didn't care? Winning the welterweight championship in the first fight diminished his drive?

It's reassuring to see De Niro give a full-bodied performance as a trainer with a clearly defined ethos about the sport of boxing. De Niro's scenes with Ramirez have real fire, and Ramirez makes you feel the burn in Duran's hunger.

So a split decision. Hands of Stone holds our interest, but never quite delivers the punch that would have made for a great boxing movie.

Maybe it's because we're in late August, but in the world of boxing movies, this one feels like an undercard bout i rather than a main event.

Selling arms for fun and profit

Miles Teller and Jonah Hill team for a comic thriller about gun runners.

It's impossible to watch War Dogs without thinking about such recent movies as The Big Short, American Hustle and maybe even Wolf of Wall Street. Director Todd Phillips (The Hangover Trilogy) has made a movie about a couple of buddies who wind up trying to outsmart the US government with a $300 million arms contract that involves faulty and illegally shipped bullets.

Making a movie about amoral characters isn't easy, even when that movie has an infectiously jaunty spirit. Because we spend a lot of time with the buddies played by Miles Teller and Jonah Hill, War Dogs puts us in the awkward position of rooting for a couple of gun runners without asking that we give much thought to the ramifications of their business.

Hill plays Efraim Diveroli as an overweight hustler without qualms. Teller portrays David Packouz as a person who hasn't entirely lost his moral compass, but the movie is best as a conventional bromance that deals in stark incongruities: A couple of ill-prepared novices trying to cross Iraq's "triangle of death" with a shipment of Berettas and a guide named Marlboro, for example.

The partners' trip to Iraq qualifies as an exception to their standard business practice, which involves reaping as much profit from war as possible without leaving their Miami offices. The idea is to make money without getting shot at.

As explained in the movie, Diveroli understood that serious money could be made by bottom feeding; i.e., landing the small contracts that the big arms dealers ignored. Lots of small contracts added up to big money.

A lot of what the two men did was perfectly legal -- until it wasn't.

Hill -- not exactly a physical specimen to begin with -- has put on weight as if to demonstrate that Diveroli is encased in his own gluttony. He loves money, cocaine and prostitutes. Hill gives good sleaze, complete with slicked back hair and a high-pitched, near maniacal laugh. A poster of Al Pacino as Scarface hangs above Diveroli's desk.

As the more conventional of the two, Teller's David has a wife (Ana de Armas) and small daughter. Initially, David hides his business from his wife, who thinks that he's selling high-quality sheets to Florida homes for the retired. David did try his hand at that business until Diveroli invited him to join his lucrative venture.

Diveroli's arms operation -- his company is called AEY -- is financed by a dry cleaner and Orthodox Jew played by Kevin Pollack. Pollack's character believes -- or wants to believe -- that he's investing in a business that supplies arms to Israel.

Following a well-worn path, Phillips shows the exhilarating kick of making large amounts of money. The partners move up in the world, buying fancy Miami apartments and indulging in ample amounts of high living.

Credited to three writers including Phillips, the screenplay focuses mostly on Teller's David, a man who starts the movie as a masseuse. David's early picture financial failures make him vulnerable to Efraim's advances.

The two men knew each other as kids, and were best friends at the local Yeshiva. David also serves as the movie's narrator, our guide through this tainted world.

You probably know from previews of coming attractions that War Dogs makes room for Bradley Cooper. Cooper plays Henry Girard, a shady arms dealer whose name appears on the terrorist watch list. After what appears to be a chance meeting in Vegas, Gerard offers to sell Efraim and David 100 million rounds of bullets for AK-47s, allowing them to bid on a contract that would result in their biggest score ever.

It's a bit late in the review to mention it, but War Dogs is based on a true story that derives from a 2011 Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson, who wrote also tackled the subject in a book, Arms and the Dudes.

Despite his penchant for gross-out comedies, Phillips has directorial chops, and he uses them effectively in scenes set in Jordan, Iraq, Albania, Las Vegas, and Miami. Phillips proves capable of handling the globe hopping this kind of comic thriller requires.

What's missing from War Dogs, which can be entertaining, is a real sense of an arms trade that inflicts considerable harm on large numbers of people. It's a war movie without casualties.

Phillips may be too addicted to fun to go all the way to seriousness. For all of War Dogs' antic energy, I couldn't help wishing Phillips had taken a bigger step in that direction.