Review of Charlie Wilson’s War

Charlie Wilson’s War is a compelling movie that details how a playboy congressman, a CIA agent and a beautiful socialite combined their efforts to speerhead the most successful covert operation in history.

The movie has top name actors: Tom Hanks, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Julian Roberts. There is an undeniable undertone of man love between Hanks and Hoffman. I wasn’t sure about Tom before the movie, but I knew that Hoffman played for the other team. Any guy who knowingly goes by three names – especially if one is “Phillip” – is definitely a happy guy.

The movie has something to do with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, but I really didn’t understand much of that. Julia Roberts never turned me on. She came closest playing a street hooker in the moview with Gerbil loving Richard Gere. This movie is no exception. She doesn’t look good. She doesn’t act sexy. There is basically no reason she should be in this movie. I think they should have substituted someone hot – like Paris Hilton – in her role. The film would have been much better with a younger, hotter actress.

Charlie Wilson is a bachelor Texas congressman who likes hot tubs, strippers and cocaine. This is the best part of the movie. More strippers and gratuitous drug use always make for a good film. Despite being a party guy, he’s supposedly very intelligent with a deep sense of patriotism. Blah Blah. I want strippers.

Anyway, in the early 1980s Afghanistan had just been brutally invaded by communist Russia. Julia Roberts hates Russia, but I didn’t listen to much of what she was saying so I’m not sure why. She tricks Hanks into helping the Mujahideen (Afghan freedom fighters). 

Hanks teams up Hoffman and the sparks fly. Hoffman (who has a moustache that gay cops everywhere will love) plays a blue-collar operative in a company of the rich and privileged. It is clear he is attracted to Hanks and the two spend the rest of the movie stealing passionate glances at one another. So the movie goes, the three of them travel the world talking to towel heads, Pakistanis, Israelis, Egyptians, arms dealers, law makers and a belly dancer (not enough skin). 

Overall, the movie was a waste of two hours but that is what movies usually are…. Sneak a flask in, pour some coke on the floor, and get hammered.