In “Charlie Wilson’s War,” there is a hard-to-swallow scene that takes place some time after we’ve already seen Tom Hanks snort cocaine in a bathtub with topless hookers. A Soviet helicopter is flying over the desert, mowing down members of the Afghan mujaheddin—picking them off one by one like a videogame. The violence is cartoonish, but the moment portrayed actually happened in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Actually, it happened a lot.
Perspective and context are everything in Mike Nichols’ new satire, based on the best-selling book by George Crile, where Hanks plays a real-life boozing, partying U.S. congressman who almost single-handedly helped Afghan rebels fight off the Soviet empire in their country. The great irony, of course, is that there are factions who used the secret arms and training supplied to them covertly by Charlie Wilson (Hanks) to build up the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and look where we are today.
But don’t let the heavy-goings on described in the two paragraphs above make you think this film is a morose, serious-minded drama. Nichols (“The Graduate,” “Primary Colors”) keeps everything light and breezy, making “Charlie Wilson’s War” a satire of the second Cold War and clueless American politics, while also celebrating the comparatively loose morals and naiveté of the greed decade. Once you get over the significant hump of comparisons to today’s U.S. foreign policy, the movie takes on a charm of its own. But is that something we want to get over?
If it sounds like the movie is a bit all over the place, it is. The talky script, by Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”), gives Hanks and Julia Roberts some pretty big mouthfuls—and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The rapid-fire delivery ramps up the pace, and its obvious pretty early on that this film is playing for uncomfortable laughs. There are plenty of them, and soon this true story escalates into tall tale territory. I’m sure liberties have been taken, but it’s all in good fun and in service of the overall theme of the picture, right?
Roberts, as a rich Texas socialite who converts the congressman to her cause of arming the Afghans, is rigid compared to Hanks’ devil-may-care Wilson. Both of them, however, are downright measured compared to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s supporting role as frustrated CIA operative Gust Avrakotos. To say that he’s chewing scenery wouldn’t be fair because Hoffman plays the comedy as dry as a bone. It is one of the funniest performances of the year, and, although Oscar typically doesn’t reward comedic roles, maybe he will be remembered come Oscar time since nominations are less than a month away.
As an examination of American hubris and the simple-minded, winner-take-all mentality (which, again, falls squarely at the feet of the U.S.), “Charlie Wilson’s War” works well. Wilson says repeatedly that he just wants to “kill Russians,” but there’s more to it than that and it takes the congressman the breadth of the movie to see it. The slippery, easy-going statesman becomes a victim of his own shortsightedness.
Nichols and Sorkin smartly save underlining any conclusions about the story until the very end—when they then put an exclamation point on it. Wilson may have defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, but after the initial fighting is over, he can’t find anyone to fund the rebuilding of the war-torn country. Sound familiar?
These issues are far trickier than the movie makes them out to be—which is the point, I get it—but the whole thing is just too sad and pathetic when the filmmakers trace victory (or, in another modern-day parallel, “mission accomplished”) back to men who just want to make their women proud of them. I guess that is why giving the movie a bright, if hollow, tone makes it an easier pill to swallow.
It really sounds like my type of film. I will try to check it out tomorrow along with Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead and maybe National Treasure 2.