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| Charlie Wilson's War | 
| Category: Movie
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  131 reviews
Sales Rank: 9818
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 103 minutes
ASIN: B001688V2E
Theatrical Release Date: December 21, 2007
Release Date: October 6, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
And Then We F***** Up The Rest of the World April 25, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
'A liberal as well as a libertine, Charlie Wilson finds common cause (among other satisfactions) with Joanne Herring, a right-wing Houston socialite who loves Jesus and martinis and hates Communism. She is a splendid American contradiction, standing up for liberty and godliness while getting into bed (literally) with a bachelor congressman and (metaphorically) with President Zia (Om Puri), the military ruler of Pakistan. And, after all was said and done, Charlie says "And then we fucked up the rest of the world." AO Scott
Charlie Wilson, was an unapologetic womanizer, cocaine user, alcohol lover and all around good guy., The kind of congressman any sane person would want to avoid. Not me, if I knew my congressman was akin to Charlie Wilson I would walk on water to see that he won office again. Charlie got things done, he had heart and he loved, what is more important in this world? Tom Hanks portrays him perfectly. Joanne Herring played by Julia Roberts is the perfect foil. A lovely blond bombshell who was intelligent and wanted to make the world a better place. She said she loved the Lord and that's how she portrayed her works to the world and to the people who she was able to enlist to help her. The winner in my mind is Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays Gust Avrakotos, a C.I.A. operative. He does not care whose feet he steps on, he just gets the job done. His ability to clear the air of any fanciful misunderstandings is well worth the price of the film.
Charlie Wilson is asked by Joanne to help the Afghan's, and it is not until he visits the refugee camps that he fully understands the need. Isn't that the way it always is? He is convinced and for the next ten years he does whatever it takes to turn the first $5 million into one billion dollars. When all is said and done, however, we leave Afghanistan in a mess and of course, today we see the result to a country in chaos- the terrorists take over.
"Charlie Wilson's War is a journalistic satire of realpolitik in which our jerry-rigged alliances, which looked strategic at the time, end up biting the U.S. in unforeseen ways. Hovering over the film is the audience's realization that the Afghan war, while it hastened the downfall of the Soviet Union, created the breeding ground for an arguably more toxic threat: the jihad radicals who had nothing but hatred for the West (even as they were only too happy to use its rocket launchers). It says Charlie was right to fight his war -- if only Congress had had the will to support his reconstruction dream!" Owen Gleiberman
I loved the reality of this film- it was fun but with such a good message. Charlie Wilson is a man whom we would all want to be part of our lives. He actually gets things done in government. It took a woman to show him what was really needed, but once he got the fever he worked wholeheartedly for the Afghans. The film's ending was not to my liking, but I can over look that one error. Everyone should see this film, see what can be done when some one has a vision.
Highly recommended. prisrob 04-24-08
Road to Perdition (Widescreen Edition)
 Super Story, Great Acting by all three ties it all together! April 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you have even been to congress this is how they really do things. Great story and even better acting by all three, Philp Hoffman ties it all together with a performance second to none. The writing is Funny and uplifting. And yes I agree they should have called it Ronald Reagans War but lets face it if hollywood was right on every time we would only have one new movie a year.
 Sometimes, covert ops are just like a box of chocolates. April 21, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Aaron Sorkin, you silver-tongued devil, you had me at: "Ladies and gentlemen of the clandestine community..."
That line is from the opening scene of "Charlie Wilson's War", in which the title character, a Texas congressman (played in full Gumpian southern-drawl mode by Tom Hanks) is receiving an Honored Colleague award from the, er-ladies and gentlemen of the clandestine (read: CIA) community.
Sorkin, (creator/writer of "The West Wing" TV series) provides the smart, snappy dialog for high-class director Mike Nichols' latest foray into political satire, a genre he hasn't dabbled in since his excellent 1998 film "Primary Colors".
Wilson, known to Beltway insiders as "good-time Charlie" during his congressional tenure, is an unlikely American hero. He drank like a fish and loved to party, but could readily charm key movers and shakers into supporting his pet causes and any attractive young lady within range into lifting her skirt. So how did this whiskey guzzling romeo circumvent the official U.S. government foreign policy of the time (mid to late 1980s) and help the Mujahideen rebels drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, ostensibly paving the way for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War?
He did it with a little help from his friends- a coterie of strange bedfellows including an Israeli arms dealer, a belly-dancing girlfriend, high-ranking officials in Egypt and Pakistan, a misanthropic but handily resourceful CIA operative, and "the sixth-richest woman in Texas", who also happened to be a fervent anti-communist. It's quite the tale.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman continues his nearly perfect track record of stealing just about every film he appears in. He plays the aforementioned CIA operative, Gust Avrakotos with much aplomb. His character is, shall we say, "less than diplomatic" in dealing with co-workers (and superiors), which makes him a bit of a pariah at the Agency. Through serendipitous circumstance, Gust falls in league with Wilson and one of his lady friends, a wealthy socialite named Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts, bearing a spooky resemblance to Joan Rivers).
The three amigos form a sort of political "X-Men" team; each one has their own unique "special power" to bring to the table. Once Joanne lures powerful and influential congressman Doc Long (the wonderful Ned Beatty) on board, the deal is sealed.
Aside from the expected bit of "creative license", Nichols doesn't deviate too much from the facts laid out in the book by George Crile; despite some inherent elements of political satire, it's a fairly straightforward rendering. What is most interesting to me is what they left out. One incident in particular, which involved a private arms dealer "accidentally" blowing up a D.C. gas station (oops!) on his way to a meeting with Wilson and Avrakotos, seems like it would have been a no-brainer for the movie.
One final thought. After the film's high-fiving, feel-good, flag waving coda subsided and the credits started rolling, something was nagging. And then it dawned on me. There is one glaring omission in the postscript of this "true story"; I can only pose it as an open question to Mssrs. Nichols, Sorkin and Hanks:
So tell me-exactly how did we get from all those colorful, rapturously happy, missile launcher-waving Afghani tribesmen, dancing in praise to America while chanting Charlie Wilson's name back in the late 80s to nightly news footage of collapsing towers and U.S. troops spilling their blood into the very same rocky desert tableau, a scant decade later?
Let's see you turn THAT story into a wacky political satire starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
Then again, what do I know? I'm just a guy who reviews movies.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. . . . April 11, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Charlie Wilson's War" tells the largely unknown (until now) story of America's aid to the guerillas during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. 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 With hindsight, we wonder at how we could have been so foolish as to arm the very people who were responsible for 9/11 many years later, but the picture at the time looked a bit different. The USSR was waging a one-sided war with helicopters against tribal peoples armed with WWI rifles. Wilson, an old-school wheeler-dealer, calls in his chits, uses his plum committee assignments, and manages to get the financing for arms, and then calls on the Pakistanis to help get the arms to the Afghans. The USSR's loss was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.
Given the subject matter, the movie is quite entertaining, with Tom Hanks as the hard drinking, fast living Congressman, and Julia Roberts as the Texas socialite with brains who gets him involved. Actually, I found the all-star cast distracting. Wilson is an interesting character, and the movie does little to explore what really drove him to get involved. We get a glimpse of his lonely, almost pathetic life--who was this guy, really? Joanne Herring, a virulent anti-Communist and passionate Christian, is also intriguing, but I couldn't get past seeing Julia Roberts in a stiff blonde wig.
Happily, Philip Seymour Hoffman saves the day as a rogue CIA agent who executes Charlie's covert operation. Too much of a renegade to get promoted within the system, bored with his assignments, but with impeccable credentials and contacts, Hoffman drives the strategy. We all know, unfortunately, how it turned out. The film is worth seeing, if only to drive home how we repeat the mistakes of the past again and again.
Great movie - even from a Russian's point of view :-) April 9, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The studio decided not to distribute the movie in Russia. Official explanation was that it was not financially feasible (apparently, because the Russians are showed as bloodthirsty villains). Nonetheless, I think it is a great satire movie, showing how the States bred their current enemy, the Islam fundamentalists. Of course, I hate to see how Russian are presented as seemingly liking killing innocent people. I know several Afghan veterans and I don't believe that they liked being sent to a war. Neither do I believe that killing civilians was a normal thing, as the brief shots of fighting suggest.
However, the point is that the Americans do not learn by others' mistakes. We, the Russians, showed to the world what fighting Muslims can turn into (Afghanistan, Chechnya) (let's leave the reasons for those wars beyond the scope of this review). Overall, a really enjoyable movie thanks to the cast, performance and directing, but one which will provoke you thinking.
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