Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a single, East Texas congressman with a fondness for alcohol, drugs and woman. The film begins in 1980, just after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a poor nation woefully unequipped to fight the superpower. For whatever reason, Charlie feels compelled to help out. Using his position on the House Appropriations Committee, the liberal Democrat Wilson travels to Pakistan, making deals to obtain high-tech weaponry for the Afghans with some encouragement from his lover Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts). Herring was a right-wing Houston millionaire socialite who hated the Communists and wanted them to stop killing the brave Afghans.
Joanne arranges a trip to Pakistan for Charlie to meet her friend, General Zia. Zia, the military dictator of Pakistan hates the Soviets with a passion. After the General asks Rep. Wilson to visit Pakistan’s refugee camps for Afghans, Charlie becomes obsessed with helping the Afghans beat the Soviets. Upon his return, Wilson teams up with a moody long time CIA man named Gust Avrakotos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). The heavy set, chain-smoking agent handles Afghanistan at the CIA with “three other guys” and knows just the Israeli they need to talk to about weapons.
Between Charlie’s ability to call in political favors, Joanne’s skills at schmoozing and cozying up to her fellow millionaires and Gust’s knowledge of secret operations, the three are able to get the money and weapons needed to help the Afghans to victory. When this whole thing began, the U.S. was supplying the Afghans with a virtually pointless $5 million a year, but that amount was quietly raised to $1 billion a year by the time everything was said and done.
Aaron Sorkin and Mike Nichols have painted a sanitized picture of both Charlie Wilson and Gust Avrakotos in the film. While Hanks and Hoffman portray them as lovable rogues any mother could love, George Crile’s 2003 book paints a much harsher portrait. Charles Wilson was a hit- and-run-driver who took various women on federally funded vacations masked as work, whenever he could get away with it. He was also never one for political correctness, once calling Pat Schroeder, a Colorado Democrat “babycakes.” Avrakotos is a washed up guy, who has broken too many rules to count.
Though Tom Hanks has proven his acting chops through the years, he is miscast as Charlie Wilson. Hanks lacks the swarthiness of the womaning deal maker Wilson admits to being, and the toughness of the back room legislator Wilson would have had to posses. No matter how hard he tries, there’s niceness to Tom that shines through even when he’s trying to be caddish. Dennis Quaid, Woody Harrelson or even Russell Crowe would have been more convincing. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the best fit here as Gust, he looks like a tired guy who has been fighting the bureaucracy for years to get some to listen to him. Hoffman is a master at playing the slovenly lout.
Mike Nichols handling of the rundown to the end of the Soviet-Afghanistan war is perfunctory at best. The first mujahideen shoot downs of Soviet helicopters with shoulder-fired missiles supplied by the U.S. (Rep. Wilson is seen high-fiving and hugging his staff) A single combat montage with onscreen Soviet casualty statistics substitutes for any dramatic sense of how the David-and-Goliath dynamic suddenly shifted. There is virtually no mention of how those Afghan “freedom fighters” later became the Taliban and turned their wrath to the United States and the rest of the Western World.
Of course, to end Charlie Wilson’s War on the eve of September 11, 2001 would be a complete downer for the film. Instead, we are left with Gusts warning, “”the crazies are rolling into Kandahar,” and Wilson failing to get funding for the building of a school in Pakistan. While all this may be true, Charlie Wilson’s War feels a bit ill-timed. Charlie Wilson may have helped to end the cold war, but did he inadvertently help to ignite the war on terror?
Charlie Wilson’s War is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. The audio is available in English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, and French Dolby Digital 5.1. Spanish and French subtitles and English closed captioning is also available.
The extras included with Charlie Wilson’s War are a bit disappointing. “Who Is Charlie Wilson” (12:00) contains brief interviews with the real Charlie Wilson and Joanne Herring. In addition, there are also brief clips from the 60 Minutes segment, “Charlie Did It.”
The DVD also contains a pretty standard “Making of” featurette. “The Making of Charlie Wilson’s War” (17:00) consists of standard interviews with the actors, producers, director, writer and other principles involved in the film.
