Academy Award® winners Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman star in this compelling and witty film from Oscar®-winning director Mike Nichols and Primetime Emmy®-winning writer Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing). Based on the outrageous true story, Charlie Wilson's War shows how one congressman who loved a good time, one Houston socialite who loved a good cause and one renegade CIA agent who loved a good fight conspired to bring about the largest covert operation in history.
Political movies about backroom negotiations need not be dry or heavy-handed, as Charlie Wilson's War delightfully proves. Based on the true story of playboy congressman Wilson's efforts to fund Afghanistan's defense against the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, the film is borne along on breezy attitude and a peppery script by West Wing scribe Aaron Sorkin. Wilson, played by Tom Hanks (who also produced), is the perfect hero for this kind of tale, because there's nothing perfect or heroic about him: He's a highball-swilling, fanny-pinching gadabout who becomes radicalized on the issue of helping the Afghans against their mighty aggressor. He has help in the form of a right-wing Texas anti-Communist (Julia Roberts) with a genius for raising money, and a sardonic CIA operative (Philip Seymour Hoffman, stealing the show) who lacks all the social skills Wilson has in abundance. Sorkin's syncopated speech is just the ticket for director Mike Nichols, who understands exactly how to keep this kind of political comedy popping (the complicated story comes in at a hair over 90 minutes, amazingly). Some scoundrels are on the right side of the angels, and the movie's Charlie Wilson is one of them. --Robert Horton
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Charlie Wilson's War (Full Screen):
In the early 1980s, Charlie Wilson is a womanizing US congressional representative from Texas who seemed to be in the minor leagues, except for the fact that he is a member of two major foreign policy and covert-ops committees. However, prodded by his major conservative supporter, Joanne Herring, Wilson learns about the plight of the people are suffering in the brutal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. With the help of the maverick CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos, Wilson dedicates his canny political efforts to... more info
Hollywood's War:
Charlie Wilson's War was Hollywood's take on the book of the same name. The book was very well done and rich in detail, the movie, by necessity, was waaay more simplistic. Lost were the rich details of a complex man, a chauvanist pig if ever there was one, but a patriotic pig. But what the movie lacks in details it makes up in entertainment; after all, Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks are first magnatude stars, although they are one upped by the actor playing the CIA agent. All together worth seeing.
That Was Then, This Is Now:
The other day I made a short comment on a political blog after viewing this film and reading a long review that gave the real details behind the CIA efforts and the long-term political implications behind the maneuvers that Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson used to get secret appropriations to fund the mujahedeens in Afghanistan back in the earlier 1980s, the previous heyday of American covert operations around the world, during the early years of the Reagan administration. In that comment I noted that the... more info
How the Military-Industrial Complex Works:
Charlie Wilson's War, 2008 film The film begins with the silhouette of a man who launches a rocket towards the camera. [Symbolism?] Next we see a meeting at the CIA where "Charlie Did It". [Or did he?] Congressman Charles Wilson gets an award. "This is based on a true story". [It is not a true story in itself.] In April 1980 some people are bathing in a small pool. Dan Rather is on the TV news, the talk is about falling dominoes. Is the Free World doomed unless the Afghan people can defeat the foreign... more info
