real story of alpha dog movie characters and real people

By the time they were teens, the pair had adopted torn jeans and grunge music. Packouz, a guitar-playing pot smoker, had never bought into the area's luxury-car, clean-cut aesthetic. Podrizki's parents didn't fit the mold his dad, who was French, met his mother, a Mexican Jew, while studying medicine in her homeland. Podrizki, whose narrow eyes and fine hair resemble Thom Yorke's, and Packouz, who has a clean-shaven pate and intense, aquamarine eyes, bonded early as outsiders in their Jewish neighborhood ('the shtetl,' as Podrizki jokingly calls it). 'I thought it was kind of stupid, honestly, but my younger friends thought it was pretty funny,' Packouz says. To Podrizki and Packouz, who were four years older than Diveroli, the incessant pranks were more often childish than hilarious. Because Orthodox Jews aren't allowed to touch switches during the Sabbath, the whole congregation allegedly had to pray in the dark. Local legend has it that one Friday evening, the young rascal even snuck into Beth Israel, the storied synagogue just off Arthur Godfrey Road in Miami Beach, and flipped off the lights. After the bigger kids inevitably chased him down - and usually pummeled him - Diveroli would wait a few minutes and then do it all over again. At synagogue, the chubby youngster would run up to older neighbors, yank off their yarmulkes, and run away laughing hysterically. The untold story of the aftermath of the three young Miamians' arms-dealing escapades is almost as dramatic as the fictional tale that's about to hit big screens.Įfraim Diveroli always knew how to be the center of attention. I love my country and I'm a proud American, but the government fucked me.' 'Life was good, until some self-righteous New York Times reporters manipulated the facts. 'I may have been a rebellious kid, but I overcame my obstacles, worked hard, built my business,' writes Diveroli, who declined to comment for this story because of ongoing litigation. he says the studio stole the idea for War Dogs from his memoir, which he self-published in June under the title Once a Gunrunner.

Fresh out of federal prison, he's ferociously fighting Packouz's legal claims. 'I'm in the poorhouse now, living off social security and whatever I can get from relatives.'ĭiveroli, though, says he's the one getting a raw deal. 'He burned me for all of my principal plus all the years of interest,' says Merrill, who contends he lost his life savings - $1.3 million - to Diveroli.

Real story of alpha dog movie characters and real people