If current trends in film and television have taught us anything, it is that truth is most definitely stranger than fiction.

Two of the best films of the summer have been the scarcely believable documentaries Weiner and Author: The JT Leroy Story, while there have been several screen adaptations of the OJ Simpson saga in recent times.

The latest work to draw inspiration from an unlikely real life tale is the comedy drama War Dogs, based on a Rolling Stone article (turned into the book Arms And The Dudes) by journalist Guy Lawson. The story tells how a pair of regular blokes from Miami, Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz (played by Jonah Hill and Miles Teller), became two of the biggest players in the global arms industry, simply by taking advantage of public auctions on the Pentagon website (a move forced on the US military following the controversy over Dick Cheney's links with Halliburton).

This is the cue for a tale that encompasses, variously, being chased through the Iraqi dessert by insurgents, bribing the Jordanian government to free a cache of weapons from customs, and - most spectacularly - being threatened at gunpoint by Albanian gangsters.

Picking Hangover director Todd Phillips to bring out the blackly comedic flavour of the material was a smart move, with Hill in particular - complete with garish tan - excelling as the scheming Diveroli. Indeed, the energetic performance is the actor's best performance since his unforgettable turn in Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street.

While Teller is fine as the more straitlaced Packouz, it is tempting to imagine what Jesse Eisenberg - who was mooted for the role - would have brought to the part. Elsewhere, Ana de Armas does splendidly with the slightly underwritten part of Packouz's girlfriend, while Bradley Cooper is chilling as a notorious international arms dealer.

Both a rollicking comedy and an insightful look at America's hopelessly dysfunctional relationship with guns, War Dogs is weapons grade entertainment.

In cinemas August 26.