Although it comes from the director of all three Hangover movies, the trailer for Todd Phillips’ new movie War Dogs shares more in common with its brother in canine film-making, Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf Of Wall Street. It’s not just the presence of a sweat-drenched Jonah Hill, either; Phillips’ movie seems to be trying to match the unsettling commitment to excess Scorsese masterfully deployed in his 2014 Oscar-nominee. (Along with a little bit of the narration from Goodfellas, thrown in for good measure.)
Based on a true story (and its subsequent Rolling Stone article), the trailer stars Hill and Miles Teller as a couple of privileged 20-something morons who stumble into a $300 million arms deal with the Pentagon. Answering a question no one ever bothered to ask—i.e., what if Nic Cage’s Lord Of War starred a pair of fist-bumping frat bros with a penchant for “Your Mom” jokes—the trailer bounces its way through strip clubs, coke-filled bathrooms, and bullet-strewn battlefields on its way to an August 2016 release.