Charlie Wilson's War

director: Mike Nichols
year: 2007

During the Soviet-Afghan war, fun lovin' Texas congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) dreams up and coordinates the maverick operation to get rocket launchers into Afghan hands so those hands can bring down Soviet helicopters and their empire. With the help of ingenious spy Gust Avrakos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Commie hatin' Southern dame Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), the plan works—and then some.


Francois Truffaut famously commented to the effect that all war films are pro-war films because their battle scenes are always the most dramatic ones. Charlie Wilson's War may be a rebuttal: Mike Nichols has shot some of the most inept action scenes I've seen in a long time! They don't derail his film—wisely, most of it takes place outside Afghanistan and inside offices—but they do prove that Nichols should stick to talking rather than air-to-ground combat. And, when he does, there's little to fault him for: the performances are good, the editing smooth, the movie a visually slick, funny, politically-infused romp. It's the script that's much more at fault, with its ten ton bags of subtlety softly lobbed onto our lap. I guess they figure if you don't actually say 9/11 or Iraq, it's clever writing. And what's the deal with a cynical Texas politician—whose jaded view of the political process allows him to declare matter-of-factly that he's been getting re-elected thanks to the Jewish lobby—being saddened and surprised by the state of Afghan refugees in Pakistan? Seems like cheap sentiment and a necessary plot point squeezed out at the expense of a consistent character. Still, it ain't all bad, for it contains what may be one of the best screen toasts of all time. Gust Avrakos, watching TV news footage of the Soviets pulling out of Afghanistan, raises his glass: "Here's to you, you motherfuckers."

Charlie Wilson's War ends with a truce.