There are some eery Jewish themes in here (hustlers, ethnic networking, chutzpah, in-group vs out-group morality). I remember shortly after 9/11, I asked some friends in shul, “How can we as Jews profit from the war on terrorism?”
The story of two Jewish twentysomething arms dealers from Miami will hit the big screen this August in a new comedic drug-thriller called War Dogs, produced by Bradley Cooper (swoon) and directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover).
Based on Guy Lawson’s 2011 viral Rolling Stone article, “The Stoner Arms Dealers,” and his subsequent book Arms and the Dudes, War Dogs tells true story of Efraim Diveroli (played by Jonah Hill) and David “Mordechai” Packouz (Miles Teller), two former Miami yeshiva students-cum-international arms dealers who land a $300 million U.S. Defense Department contract during the Iraq War. Shrouded in clouds of smoke from their bongs, they, along with a web of international associates, peddled aging weapons and ammunition originally from China and the Soviet Union to American allies fighting in Afghanistan. (A third partner from their Orthodox synagogue, Alexander Podrizki, joined their arms dealing scheme when they needed a Russian speaker, but he does not seem to have a significant role in the film.)
Diverlo and Packouz accomplished all this, naturally, from the comfort of their Miami apartment. “They call guys like us war dogs: bottom-feeders who make money off of war without ever stepping foot on the battlefield,” Teller’s voice says in the trailer. “It was meant to be derogatory, but we kind of liked it.”
Here’s a snippet from Lawson’s piece, which chronicles Diveroli and Packouz’s Jewish heritage:
Packouz and Diveroli met at Beth Israel Congregation, the largest Orthodox synagogue in Miami Beach. Packouz was older by four years, a skinny kid who wore a yarmulke and left his white dress shirts untucked. Diveroli was the class clown, an overweight kid with a big mouth and no sense of fear. After school, the pair would hang out at the beach with their friends, smoking weed, playing guitar, sneaking in to swim in the pools at five-star hotels. When Packouz graduated, his parents were so concerned about his heavy pot use that they sent him to a school in Israel that specialized in handling kids with drug problems. It turned out to be a great place to get high. “I took acid by the Dead Sea,” Packouz says. “I had a transcendental experience.”
The trailer, however, doesn’t seem to note Diveroli or Packouz’s Jewish background much head-on, but there are glimpses. In one scene, Hill’s character Diveroli appears to be wearing a yarmulke (1:00) as he high-fives Teller; in another, a jumpsuit-clad Hill muscles his way through an airport crowd with a gold “chai” dangling around his neck (1:12).
Jewcy’s Gabriela Geselowitz notes:
This film is clearly in the new sub-genre of American Hustle or The Wolf of Wall Street of white guys making tons of money in a reprehensible manner and living hedonistic lifestyles, as some kind of post-recession message about the men we love to hate for near-sociopathically exploiting others for their own material gain. And when these men are Jewish, it just makes it that much more embarrassing.
Still, the story is an undeniably wacky one, involving Eastern European mobsters, gun runners, and major political figures, and it’s sure to make a sensational movie. (I won’t spoil what happens to the two Yeshiva friends.) But fun as the story (and trailer) may be, Packouz and Diveroli are no heroes, and neither Diveroli’s rabbi nor his mother thought so at the time of his trial.
“Efraim needs to go to jail,” a local rabbi told the judge. Even Diveroli’s mother concurred. “I know you hate me for saying this,” she said, addressing her son directly, “but you need to go to jail.” Diveroli’s shoulders slumped.
…Efraim Diveroli, by contrast, knew exactly what he wanted to be: an arms dealer. It was the family business. His father brokered Kevlar jackets and other weapons-related paraphernalia to local police forces, and his uncle B.K. sold Glocks, Colts and Sig Sauers to law enforcement. Kicked out of school in the ninth grade, Diveroli was sent to Los Angeles to work for his uncle. As an apprentice arms dealer, he proved to be a quick study. By the time he was 16, he was traveling the country selling weapons. He loved guns with a passion — selling them, shooting them, talking about them — and he loved the arms industry’s intrigue and ruthless amorality. At 18, after a dispute with his uncle over money, Diveroli returned to Miami to set up his own operation, taking over a shell company his father had incorporated called AEY Inc….
His business plan was simple but brilliant. Most companies grow by attracting more customers. Diveroli realized he could succeed by selling to one customer: the U.S. military. No government agency buys and sells more stuff than the Defense Department — everything from F-16s to paper clips and front-end loaders. By law, every Pentagon purchase order is required to be open to public bidding. And under the Bush administration, small businesses like AEY were guaranteed a share of the arms deals. Diveroli didn’t have to actually make any of the products to bid on the contracts. He could just broker the deals, finding the cheapest prices and underbidding the competition. All he had to do was win even a minuscule fraction of the billions the Pentagon spends on arms every year and he would be a millionaire. But Diveroli wanted more than that: His ambition was to be the biggest arms dealer in the world — a young Adnan Khashoggi, a teenage Victor Bout…
One evening, Diveroli picked Packouz up in his Mercedes, and the two headed to a party at a local rabbi’s house, lured by the promise of free booze and pretty girls. Diveroli was excited about a deal he had just completed, a $15 million contract to sell old Russian-manufactured rifles to the Pentagon to supply the Iraqi army. He regaled Packouz with the tale of how he had won the contract, how much money he was making and how much more there was to be made.
“Dude, I’ve got so much work I need a partner,” Diveroli said. “It’s a great business, but I need a guy to come on board and make money with me.”
Packouz was intrigued. He was doing some online business himself, buying sheets from textile companies in Pakistan and reselling them to distributors that supplied nursing homes in Miami. The sums he made were tiny — a thousand or two at a time — but the experience made him hungry for more.
“How much money are you making, dude?” Packouz asked.
“Serious money,” Diveroli said.
“How much?”
“This is confidential information,” Diveroli said.
“Dude, if you had to leave the country tomorrow, how much would you be able to take?”
“In cash?”
“Cold, hard cash.”
Diveroli pulled the car over and turned to look at Packouz. “Dude, I’m going to tell you,” he said. “But only to inspire you. Not because I’m bragging.” Diveroli paused, as if he were about to disclose his most precious secret. “I have $1.8 million in cash.”
…The Pentagon’s buyers were soldiers with little or no business experience, and Diveroli knew how to win them over with a mixture of charm, patriotism and a keen sense of how to play to the military culture; he could yes sir and no sir with the best of them. To get the inside dirt on a deal, he would call the official in charge of the contract and pretend to be a colonel or even a general. “He would be toasted, but you would never know it,” says Packouz. “When he was trying to get a deal, he was totally convincing. But if he was about to lose a deal, his voice would start shaking. He would say that he was running a very small business, even though he had millions in the bank. He said that if the deal fell through he was going to be ruined. He was going to lose his house. His wife and kids were going to go hungry. He would literally cry. I didn’t know if it was psychosis or acting, but he absolutely believed what he was saying.”
…Above all, Diveroli cared about the bottom line. “Efraim was a Republican because they started more wars,” Packouz says. “When the United States invaded Iraq, he was thrilled. He said to me, ‘Do I think George Bush did the right thing for the country by invading Iraq? No. But am I happy about it? Absofuckinglutely.’ He hoped we would invade more countries because it was good for business.”
…Diveroli’s aunt — a strong-willed and outspoken woman who fought constantly with her nephew — joined the two friends to provide administrative support. She didn’t approve of their drug use, and she talked openly about them on the phone, as if they weren’t present.
