Charlie Wilson’s War (2007)

Directed by Mike Nichols. Starring Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Amy Adams, Om Puri, Ken Stott, Wynn Everett, Mary Bonner Baker, Ned Beatty, Christopher Denham, Rachel Nichols, Shiri Appleby, Denis O’Hare, John Slattery, Emily Blunt, Peter Gerety. [R]

It’s 1980, and the hedonistic, womanizing U.S. Congressman, Charlie Wilson (Hanks), is contacted by a wealthy socialite from his home state of Texas, Joanne Herring (a badly miscast Roberts, trapped in an underwritten role), to help Afghanistan in its opposition of the Soviet Union’s invasion. Glossy to a fault, the movie is entertaining but superficial (and rates pretty high on the Argo-Scale of misleading historical responsibility/credit), a trademark of writer Aaron Sorkin’s lesser scripts—snappy, but hollow inside. Hanks is good, Hoffman is even better as a gruff, unfiltered CIA expert who helps Charlie with strategy and diplomacy (well, not as much on the latter), and Adams is crisply restrained as the politician’s girl Friday. But the movie never gets around to sufficiently explaining what made Wilson so devoted to this political issue (surely, one visit to a refugee camp isn’t enough to undo an entire personality deficiency—the sleazy Congressman’s aides are referred to collectively as “Charlie’s Angels”, and one is even dubbed “Jailbait”!), nor does it make clear why he was handpicked to lead the charge. Lacking a traditional third act complication to raise the stakes/drama for a triumphant finale, the story wraps up too quickly, and comes close to brushing right past the dark real-world consequences of these incidents: the rise of militancy and terrorism among the Afghan people, including al-Qaeda/Osama bin Laden. One good thing to come out of the unlikely-hero protagonist’s easy-breezy social life: in a small role as a constituent’s daughter he brings back to his hotel room, Emily Blunt has rarely looked so hot onscreen. (Hey, I may not approve of Wilson’s behavior, but I do understand it.) Hanks co-produced.

64/100