Review: Charlie Wilson’s War

37 years ago Mike Nichols dared to bring Catch-22 to the screen. Despite throwing the best Hollywood had at it, the film was disappointing, failing to truly capture the revulsion of war, the madness and the satire at the heart of the novel.
Nichols has returned to war again with this light satire, based on real events in the 80s – and that same sense of disappointment is evident again.
The Charlie Wilson of the title is a maverick congressman (Playboy bunny parties, booze and drugs, etc) who sits on the committee that controls the US’s war chest.
His interest is pricked by footage of the Mujahideen fighting Russians in Afghanistan and sustaining horrific losses due to their dated equipment. This is then given impetus by one of his backers, played by Julia Roberts in a largely undemanding, decorative role.

Direct support is impossible, so ultimately Wilson persuades his committee to release funds for covert action in Afghanistan – ironically the only place where the Cold War was actually ‘fought’.
Wilson enlists the help of a hacked-off CIA agent, Gust Avrakotos (played with customary zeal by Philip Seymour Hoffman) to ensure the right weapons get to the right men in Afghanistan.
The supporting cast is full of quality players, the stand-out being Amy Adams as Wilson’s private secretary.
The script is very obviously by Aaron Sorkin, full to the brim with with short, snappy dialogue delivered at breathless pace and great one-liners in the West Wing tradition. Indeed, the exchanges between Wilson and Avrakotos are almost worth the price of admission alone.

Played by Tom Hanks in something of a return to form, Wilson comes across as a Boris Johnson-esque buffoon (asking the president of Pakistan for a Scotch) whose clownish behaviour hides some intellect and quite possibly a conscience. The latter is only really hinted at in the film, as Wilson has to face the fact that while he helped the Mujahideen send the Russians packing by releasing £500m of US funds, he can’t raise a dime to start school reconstruction in the devastated region.
And thus the film’s ultimate message, that the US never follows through and completes the end game, is cast adrift towards the audience without ever really being punched home.

History hangs heavy over this film and the ironies are there for the perceptive viewer, but so light is the satirical edge that an unsophisticated audience with no knowledge of history could entirely mis-read the film as lauding the US. Ironically, of the slew of Middle East conflict films released in the last few months, this is the only one to have found an audience in the States…
So, ultimately this is not the sum of its parts.
Score: 6/10

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Charlie Wilson's War
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