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Others say...
"Entertaining movie is worth owning" In a very entertaining way, this movie manages to educate the viewer on America's first war in Afghanistan. Indeed, the historical/political treatment is not heavy handed, but makes this more than just an entertaining movie about a colorful Congressman (and he is colorful). If you like movies that have some historical connection, but want something that's still light enough to show just for entertainment value, this movie is perfect. And, of course, Tom Hanks does a great job. "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. "Afganistan before it became fashionable" This film is an absolute genious of screenwriting, directing and acting. Charlie Wilson is an obscure congressman from Texas whose office is saturated with young female assistants seemingly ditzy but highly loyal to him; he is well connected with people of (financial) means and powerul social network. Charlie is a smart goofball - man who is astute is ways of holding (his political) power, but who also likes to get his share of fun: drugs, girls and a good glass of drink. When Charlie's lover, Texas socialite, becomes interested in stopping Russian invasion in Afganistan, Charlie becomes involved with CIA, Texas political powerhouse players, organizations promoting Middle East self-interest and self-preservation as well as Christian fundamentalist groups. The genious of Charlie's political move is that his initial $5M war game becomes $1B enterprise in a covert war fully funded by the United States and its allies who like to play quietly in the background. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays CIA veteran agent with such gusto, one cannot take eyes off him while he is on screen. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts make a pair one can never forget on screen - it is a new kind of brand that we have not seen before or since. Film is humorous and intelligent and moves fast that one does not want it to end ever. It is one of the best political movies I have seen recently. One of those films everyone should have in their personal library. Great, great piece of work about modern day american foreign politics. "A fresh look at that other Afganistan fracas." Not as funny as advertised - not a belly laugh anywhere - and a bit heavy on the eff word. I rate it at 5 stars anyway, because it presents the U.S. 'clandestine services' role in thwarting the Soviet invasion, and how important that role was. It does a fair job with the casual decadence of the Washington Scene too, and mitigates it with humor. None of the acting roles are particularly demanding, but they are well done. "Thoroughly entertaining yet disturbing" More than ever it has been interesting to read the very polarized reviews of this movie. It seems many reviewers are not focusing their reviews on the movie itself but more on the politics and how it fits with their own ultra liberal or neo conservative views. I for one find it very concerning to learn how in a democracy one very flawed character as Wilson can more or less singlehandedly (only with a lot of cash from a pro faith wealthy lobbyist) can swing the US policy towards Afghanistan. Whether this is entirely historically accurate I dont know (and hope not) but that is not really relevant in my mind when reviewing the movie for what it is, a movie. It is thoroughly entertaining throughout, extremely well acted and particularly Seymour Hoffman's character is brilliant and many of his lines are so outstanding they can carry the movie by themselves. It is not a movie that will go into history or even make your Top50 of all time but it is excellent well acted entertainment with a twist of "political history 101" attached to it (whether entirely accurate or not).
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Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen)
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What our customer's say! "How an east Texas congressman made Afghanistan safe for the Taliban", BEWARE SPOILERS!! (and pompous displays of semi-relevant erudition) Director Mike Nichols is a past master of women's point of view films that go beyond the narrow confines of the "chick flick." Silkwood (1983); Heartburn (1986); Working Girl (1988); and the very fine Postcards from the Edge (1990) come to mind. His first feature was an adaptation of Edward Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor back in 1966. He followed the next year with the generation-defining The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman. His films feature fine satire played along the cutting edge of the popular culture. Here he deviates slightly to celebrate Texas congressman Charlie Wilson who managed to persuade Congress to support the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. In particular Wilson was able to get American shoulder-launched Stinger missiles for the locals to shoot down Soviet aircraft. In the film we see some nice graphics of just how effective those missiles were. It is no exaggeration to say that Charlie Wilson's intervention turned the tide against the Soviets and eventually persuaded them to withdraw. A few years later, as we all know, the Soviet Union came to its sputtering end. Nichols's "celebration" of Congressman Wilson is however mitigated by the revelation that Good Time Charlie was no angel. Tom Hanks plays the alcoholic and cocaine snorting congressman with a genial--almost innocent--duplicity that only hints at the Machiavellian personality required to properly grace the hallowed halls of Congress. Hanks is just too sweet, a nice guy playing at being a practiced power broker. What is missing is the edge of obsession and single-minded egoism. Perhaps we needed John Malkovich with an east Texas twang. Julia Roberts plays Wilson's long-time girlfriend whose interest in defeating the godless communists stems not from any sympathy for the out-gunned Afghans but from religious sensibilities of the sort usually associated with evangelical members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I found her white wig and high-toned manner a step in the wrong direction for Miss Roberts. I fear that the transition she is making from starlet to star to character actor is an embarrassment that she might want to avoid. The real star of this film is Phillip Seymour Hoffman who plays the international operative and sometime American spy, Gust Avrakotos, a sneaky, blunt and very smart guy who also wants to defeat the Soviets. Hoffman brings to the part the kind of rough edge and frankly Machiavellian intent missing in Tom Hanks' character. The film is marred slightly by a depiction of people in power and their environs that conforms to something like television's mass culture with lots of sleeping around and sharp-edged wise-cracking on the spot, and a somewhat simplistic story line. None of this is to be helped since a living must be made and producers must be assured that the mass audience will attend. Mike Nichols is used to this, and it is remarkable how many fine films he has made that simultaneously seduced not only the money men and the audience, but the critics as well. The message of the film is contained in a Zen master story that goes like this (I am paraphrasing from the quotations page at the Internet Movie Database site): There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday who gets a horse, and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful. The boy got a horse." And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight except the boy who can't because his legs are all messed up. And everybody in the village says, "How wonderful." And again the Zen master says, "we'll see." This captures the spirit of our continuing military involvement in the Middle East. Today's results may look good or bad but can only be really defined by the unintended consequences to come. We armed the Afghans. Unfortunately their triumph against the Soviet Union led to the rise of the Taliban, and that to their harboring of Al Qaeda which led to 9/11, which led to... and so on. How Charlie Wilson's War ultimately ends may not be known for generations. See this for Mike Nichols whose clear direction and sharp eye for satire is undiminished as he approaches his ninth decade of life. (He was 76 when this film came out.) "Coherence Left on the Cutting Room Floor?", I'm giving this film three stars only because the people I watched it with were amused by it. Otherwise I'd go lower. It looked to me like a botched job, the sort of film where the script writer, the director, and the producers couldn't get on the same page and so released a compromised product that satisfied nobody. It's odd to read the other reviews here on ammy; many of them grind political axes, but the radical right-wingers accuse the film of being leftist propaganda, while the liberals accuse it of being rightist deception. I'd be happier if it were clearly anything besides shallow, exploitative, and uncontextualized. It is fairly silly to offer this as a historical film based on a true story, and yet omit so many players in that story. My own views of the film's political obtuseness are more or less the same as those expressed in the review by Timothy Scanlon. Forgetting the issue of historical content, I have to say something about the film as drama. Tom Hanks is a great actor, but a dud in this role. He's too recognizable, of course, but beyond that, he's not plausible as Charlie Wilson, even the Charlie Wilson of the script. Take a look at the real Charlie Wilson, as shown in the bonus features; you'll see what I mean. The only outstanding acting in this film, as many others have stated, is done by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of the 'rogue' intelligence agent. If you have any broader base of information about events in Afghanistan in the decades from Carter to Bush, you may find this film painful. It's a bitter fact that the USA has stepped into the jackboots left on the field by the Russians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The maxim is "know your enemy," not "become them." "The best character was not Tom Hanks nor Julia Roberts", Charlie Wilson's war is an enjoyable vehicle for making the point that someone can have a very flawed personal life, but still help humanity. I could tell Tom Hanks had a lot of fun playing the hard drinking, womanizing, Charlie Wilson. However, he didn't seem entirely comfortable in the role, which would have been more convincingly played by Michael Douglas or Jack Nicholson (although granted Nicholson's a bit too old for the role)--someone who is better at playing a womanizing jerk. And the camera man had a lot of fun with those gratuitous butt and cleavage shots. As far as the Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts characters are concerned, most of their best lines were in the trailer. The unsung hero of this movie is Phillip Seymour Hoffman (nominated for best supporting actor) playing a gruff, sarcastic, highly intelligent CIA agent. His character is hilarious, and IMO what really makes this movie. "worth it", Tom Hanks is the star of the film, and his acting abilities continue to amaze me. He can apparently do it all. The story is pretty good, though keep in mind there's more talking than action, but that's the way it is in the life of a congressman. The movie feels longer than it really is. The women who were working with Tom Hanks are VERY hot! Great movie "This was fun to watch", Watching this helps to give a clue to how some politics are done. In some cases like this, in unconventional ways. The end of the movie is really what strikes a cord - without giving anything away basically how after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan the US abandoned them and look what happened 20 years later. ![]()
Read this reviews before You buy... "Well-produced, but oddly uninvolving", "Charlie Wilson's War" tells an interesting tale, and production quality is good, but I found it uninvolving despite good performances by Hanks, Roberts, and - especially - Philip Seymour Hoffman. Much of the time I felt as if I were watching through a plate glass window: able to see what was going on, but feeling little or no connection to the players or the events. If this chapter in U.S. history interests you, or if you are a fan of the three lead actors, it's worth watching, but I would not put it on the top of my "must see" list "MIKE NICHOLS, OPUS 20", ***1/2 2007. Based on George Crile's Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times and directed by Mike Nichols. Academy award nomination for Hoffman and five Golden Globe nominations. Washington, 1980. A bored American congressman, enthralled by the Afghan war, tries to obtain secret funds in order to buy modern arms for the Afghan guerrilla warfare. I was a little surprised by some of the reviewers here which describe CHARLIE WILSON'S as if the film was a documentary or an accurate account of what really happened in the 80's. IT IS NOT. The movie is a funny satire of American morals in politics, that's all. Enjoy. Recommended. "Great movie for the older members of a family", Tom Hawks and Julia Roberts do a good job, but I really think Philip Hoffman who is exceptional as the old, crusty, operative. My wife and I bought the DVD for our viewing and watched a couple of times when our son and daughter borrowed it to watch it with their friends. Everyone has really enjoyed it. "A droll little "Charlie Wilson's War"", It's been a long time since I've seen a comedy which doesn't have to depend on toilet or sex jokes to make it funny but instead have great dialogue and an excellent cast in order for it to succeed. This film succeeds in spade due to Aaron Sorkin's(The West Wing, A Few Good Men) witty script and top notch performances from Tom Hanks as Wilson and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in an Oscar-nominated supporting performance as a CIA operative. Julia Roberts is also good as the Texas heiress but all the great lines are delivered by Hanks & Hoffman. If you like your comedy or dramedy with a light, droll touch--check this out!! Ironically it's based on a true story. "Its a great story and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is VERY entertaining in it", This would be a 3.5* movie, except that Phillip Seymoour Hoffman absolutely nails his character and has some outstanding dialogue which is just hilarious. My favorite PSH character since Boggie Nights. ![]() |
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