Charlie Wilson's War [2007] - Universal Pictures UK

SOCIALITES, CONGRESS, COVERT OPS, AND AFGHAN GUTS

This is a great film. Ignore the annoying bits at the beginning of the DVD.

The 1980's politics, the characters, the CIA, and the Soviet-Afghan-US-Israeli-Saudi-Pakistani-Egyptian war make a story that really could not convince if made up. It would read as a very overblown Frederick Forsyth or John Grisham novel. As it is, the whole thing bears repeat watching very well.

The dialogue is really very sharp in places, and the slight element of bad language is artistically justified for once. The pace is right - not frantic, not slushy. We had just the right amount of scene-setting in the hot tub with the ladies, and partying in the office with the nubile-yet-competent aides ("That's why you're the press secretary Boo-Boo!") Just the right combination of actual macho-CIA and prissy office-wallah CIA careerist. Just the right of amount of blowing up the commie helicopter gunships, commies strafing civilians, the Afghans fighting back and tanks being terminated. Really great footage - my favourite part. The acting is just professional - not overblown, no weak members. Tom Hanks looks genuinely drunk and morose and alone in one or two scenes. Julia Roberts still has life in her yet...and there was some guy called Gus in it. I forget what he did.

Apparently they changed history. Well, I remember the whole of that war as seen via British media and I got about 1% of the true picture. Not that I ever trusted any of them, then or now. (OK, OK, FoxNews is good. The exception that proves the rule.) Well, I suppose I just have to get the book now.

I have three copies of this film and I saw it at the cinema. (Two copies are for Christmas presents - I like to give educational films as presents.) Remember, the truth is always politically incorrect - that is all the explanation you need for understanding why this film did not get the press it deserved.

Buy this DVD, buy it right now. Buy two.

West Wing Goes Worldwide

Virtually Maria (Virtual Trilogy)

As a great fan of Aaron Sorkin, the man who wrote West Wing, I was delighted to hear that he had penned the script for this Tom Hanks / Julia Robers vehicle that tells the story of how one slightly seedy US politician managed to engineer the defeat of the entire Russian army in Afghanisan.

The script (as you would expect from Aaron Sorkin) is intelligent and fast paced. Tom Hanks is excellent as the playboy politician who suddenly realises he can actually make an impact on the world, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman's cynical CIA superspy is a joy to behold (watch out for the glass panel scene at CIA Langley!!).

What is also notable about this movie is that it contains the serious and sobering message that, having spent billions to get the Russians out of Afghanistan, no money was allocated to rebuild the country afterwards - leaving the people at the mercy of religious fundamentalists and triggering the mess that the world is in now.

A movie to enjoy and to learn from at the same time.

Uncinematic story competently but blandly filmed

The film is not very good. It is simply not a very cinematic story, and it has not been dramatically filmed. It's just a bunch of people talking about funding a secret war, but with the intricacies of the politics and deceptions simplified to the point of rendering everything bland and dull.

An example: Hanks tells the President of Pakistan that he has probably broken the Logan Act in his dealings. The President asks what this is, Hanks does not explain. So most of the audience are left in the dark. As I have read the book I know that the Logan Act states that it is treason for anyone apart from the President of America to conduct foreign policy (ie. only the President can start a war, which is pretty much what Charlie Wilson has done by joining a war America is not fighting). If this was explained in the movie then it would have been dramatic and interesting, but instead it's brushed under the carpet rendering the scene dull. And don't get me started on how stinger missiles suddenly turn up in Afghanistan all of a sudden (in the book it takes about 300 pages of pleading and arguing before the government allowed them to be deployed).

The only good thing about the film are two scenes involving Philip Seymour Hoffman. The first scene where he has an argument with his boss and the scene where he meets Hanks for the first time. The rest of the film is a boring dud. I even fast-forwarded a few sequences as I knew what was happening and couldn't be bothered sitting through these predictable scenes.

I have read the book (5 stars) and I can say that it is much better than the film. I would, without any hesitation, recommend reading that instead of watching this.

NOTE: There is a patronising Aids documentary on the front of the disc that you cannot skip. I have found that it can be bypassed by selecting Dansk (Danish?) on the language select screen to go straight to the main menu, you'll just have to switch off the subtitles when the film starts.

Surprisingly good

I didn't think this would be anywhere near as enjoyable as it is. I really liked it, and found it to be surprisingly good.

Don't buy if you want to know what really happened

It's not a bad film as pure entertainment but, naturally, it depicts Americans as good (though flawed) and Russians as essentially evil. I should add that I'm no fan of the appalling Soviet Empire but we now know that, far from saving Afghanistan from Russia, the US government (and the CIA) provoked the Russian invasion as part of their Cold War strategy. Whether or not you think this policy was worthwhile in harming the Soviet Empire, the fact remains that Charlie Wilson's War totally ignores the real story. This from a 1998 interview (in a French publication) with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor:

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?