Charlie Wilson's War

The Viewing Experience

This disc arrived with a SAE from the PR company asking me to return it ASAP - not the best way to put your reviewer in a good mood. I put the disc in the player and, after selecting English from the language menu, Gwyneth Paltrow appeared saying "Hello, I want to share a story with you...". What follows is a 4 minute Unicef campaign film about HIV in Africa that couldn't be skipped or scanned through. When that's done, I'm told that stealing is wrong - I KNOW! Having endured this and selected play, the film starts with 'Property of Universal Pictures International Entertainment' emblazoned across the middle of the screen. A bad mood becomes even darker. This warning appeared every 10 minutes and lasted a minute or so. It's not big, it's not clever, and it's bloody annoying as we reviewers are generally honest people, who do the job for free, but we do get to keep the discs. I seriously considered not reviewing this and sending the DVD straight back, but thought better of it. So rant over, here we go...

Introduction

During the Cold War, the US government used all sorts of nefarious activities in the campaign against Communism, for example selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contra insurgents in Nicaragua, greenlighting the overthrow of Allende's government in Chile and his replacement with Pinochet's junta and channelling billions of dollars into Afghanistan to finance the Mujahadeen in their fight against the Soviet invaders. It is this last covert operation that is the focus of Charlie Wilson's War.

Representative Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks), a heavy drinking, womanising good ol' boy, is very safe in his position due to an undemanding and complacent constituency of the 2nd Congressional District of Texas - as long as he is seen to be throwing a bit of money their way, they'll continue to elect him. Seemingly a small player on Capitol Hill, he just happens to be a member of two very important committees which deal with foreign policy and covert ops. He is helped by his special assistant Bonnie (Amy Adams) and office staff of young attractive women known as 'Charlie's Angels'. He has a saying: "You can teach them to type, but you can't teach them to grow tits."

The film begins as he receives the 'Honored Colleague' award from the Clandestine Services - people who officially don't exist - and tells in flashback how he quietly raised the funding for Afghanistan from $5 million to $1 billion a year. He spends the night with influential southern socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), a rabid right-winger who persuades him to increase funding for the freedom fighters in Afghanistan. He's not entirely convinced until he visits a refugee camp in Pakistan, where Herring is an honorary consul, and sees for himself the human tragedy that is unfolding.

Wilson is introduced to a CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who he asks what the US policy on Afghanistan is, to which Gust replies "Strictly speaking, we don't have one" but that him "and three other guys" are working on it. Gust helps Wilson understand which weapons are needed and where to buy them so they can be taken to Afghanistan without leaving an audit trail for the Russians to follow back to Washington.

Video

A top-drawer transfer, as you would expect for a recent film. The costumes and set design are excellent, really placing you in the 1980s and the inclusion of stock footage accentuates this. Some of the CGI explosions and aerial combat scenes are a little unconvincing, but this is a minor niggle, as it's not an action movie and there are only a couple of them.

Audio

The Dolby Digital English 5.1 soundtrack is clear, with crisp dialogue and good use of the surrounds.

There are excellent English HoH subtitles available as well as Arabic, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish.

Extra Features

'The Making of Charlie Wilson's War' is 17 minutes long and features most of the major cast and crew, along with the real Charlie Wilson and Joanne Herring.

'Who is Charlie Wilson?' is a 12 minute look at the real Charlie Wilson. This is a companion to the 'Making of' - even including some of the same footage - and is also an EPK piece, but not a bad one.

Conclusion

If it wasn't true, you couldn't make it up - and even if you did, no-one would believe you. Based on the book by George Crile and written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, this is intelligently scripted and well directed by Mike Nichols, a man who knows how to inject comedy into a drama.

Charlie Wilson is such an incredible character that the casting of Tom Hanks seems a little odd as he's best playing an everyman, but he does an excellent job as the larger than life Congressman from Texas. Julia Roberts is also very good as Mrs. Herring, who uses her womanly wiles to get Congressional support for her own pet project. Stealing every scene, however, is Philip Seymour Hoffman, a great actor who knows what to do with such an eccentric character as Gust Avrakotos. In a strange casting choice, there is an odd moment when Charlie and Gust go to meet the Israeli ambassador and it's Ken Stott!

America's involvement in Afghanistan is perhaps now well known because of the 'blow-back' that the men they trained and armed were later radicalised by Osama bin Laden. This part of the story isn't covered in the film, but is touched on with Gust's 'wait and see' philosophy and Wilson's analogy of the ball that keeps on bouncing.

This is a funny, entertaining and informative film that takes some very serious subject matter and deals with it in a way that makes it accessible to a mainstream audience. Recommended.