8 Most Underrated Movies From Summer 2016

Like every mainstream crime film since 1990, War Dogs follows the Goodfellas template; a quirky voice-over and contemporary soundtack takes you on a decade-spanning journey through some illicit industry the film at first tries to make incredibly exciting and consequence free, then flips to reveal that crime actually doesn't pay and your best friends are psychos. It's such a tried and tested formula that even Scorsese's lifted it (twice - Casino and The Wolf Of Wall Street), and while there's plenty of cases where it feels plain derivative - Johnny Depp double-whammy Blow and Black Mass - for me Todd Phillips' gun-running bromance has enough fresh to get past that.

Unsurprisingly, coming from the guy behind The Hangover there's a underlying comedic bite, but one that doesn't shake from the darkness of the subject matter. The central duo is the real sell, with Miles Teller and Jonah Hill on absolute top form (especially the latter, who at this point is one of the best at what he does working today, and would be more highly regarded if only he hadn't started in comedy).

However, for some the angling of the formula was a sticking point; the film does the bait-and-switch deftly, and in doing so serves as an exploration of how an entire generation misread Scarface, but many critics seemed to missed those underlying beats and could only muster praise for Hill (fair, but not complete).