![]() ![]() Anybody who tells you otherwise is either in on it or stupid.” As one of the film’s would-be protagonists, David Packouz (played by actor Miles Teller), says: “War is an economy. For most viewers, the movie is a cautionary tale, but DGC International’s executives seem to have taken its plot as a war-profiteering instruction manual. In the contractor’s offices in McLean, Virginia, some new hires were asked to watch War Dogs, a 2016 blockbuster based on the true story of two kids who got arrested after cheating the Pentagon. ![]() “There are viewers who can detach themselves from the real events and who can see the movie simply as an artistic creation – but generally, when a movie is based on a true story, it is almost impossible to do this,” she said.Īnother reason why Albanians might feel disappointed with the film is simpler: one of the Albanian characters featured in it speaks Romanian instead of Albanian.The first day on the job at the defense contractor DGC International involves an unusual orientation. “The public tends to compare reality with the artistic product, but often the expectations from the director’s point of view are different. Rovena Rrozhani, a journalist with a passion for movies, told BIRN that feelings of disappointment in movies that try to deal with “true” events are normal. “Interest is still high, so we are mulling this option,” he said. ![]() Other Hollywood movies of this category are normally screened only for two weeks. However, Gjole said Imperial cinemas still plan to screen the movie for three weeks in a row. “People were curious about the movie and were continuously coming and asking our tickets sellers if it retold the events of the arms sales in Albania, as they had heard, but after watching it, there was disappointment,” he said. Gjergji Gjole, administrator of Imperial cinemas in Tirana, told BIRN that while initial interests in the movie was high, some viewers felt let down by the way the events in Albania were portrayed. In Phillips’ movie, the man who strangely disappears after working with AEY is their Tirana driver. The movie also does not mention Kosta Trebicka, a contractor for AEY in Albania and a whistleblower whose mysterious death in October 2008 sparked a debate in Albania about illegal arms deals. Lawson alleged in the book that high-level Albanian officials and the son of former Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha were involved in the trade.īut the Hollywood movie directed by Todd Phillips and released in Albania on September 1 is a comedy-drama film focusing on the adventures of AEY’s owners as arm contractors for the US Pentagon – and it leaves out key Albanian characters that were crucial in Lawson’s work. Lawson investigated the complicated scheme by which AEY, its broker Heinrich Thomet, and Albanian contractors repacked Chinese ammunition that was under a US embargo in Albania and sold it on to US forces fighting in Afghanistan. The movie is based on the “ Rolling Stone” article by Guy Lawson, the journalist author who went on to write “ Arms and the Dudes,” a book on the true story of the US ammunition company supplier AEY and its illegal work. “We had a lot of interest in the first three or four days of the screening but it has dropped off in time since the Albanian characters in it are very superficially portrayed,” the representative of Millennium cinemas in Tirana told BIRN. The long-awaited Hollywood movie “ War Dogs” – starring Jonah Hill, Miles Teller, Ana de Armas, and Bradley Cooper – has disappointed many Albanian film-goers because it leaves out some of the highest-profile Albanians involved in the true-life events depicted in the movie.
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