CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 12/21/07

Master of War

By danny munso

The largest covert operation in United States history has its story told in a comedy about war that knows how to find laughs in serious subject matter.

Charlie Wilson's War

Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Based on the book by George Crile

Charlie Wilson's War is the true-life tale of Congressman Charles Wilson (Tom Hanks), a Texan with a larger-than-life personality and an affinity for women and whiskey. After his friend and sometime lover, the very wealthy Texan Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), convinced him that the Afghani freedom fighters defending their country against a Soviet invasion needed help, he teamed up with her to find ways to fund and arm them. Along with bulldog CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), they worked to convince Congress and the White House to support the project. Over a nine-year period, annual funding for these top-secret operations grew from $5 million to $1 billion, and the Soviets were forced to retreat from Afghanistan.

Charlie Wilson's War represents a return to the big screen for writer Aaron Sorkin, who spent the past decade dabbling in television with Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and his award-winning drama, The West Wing. While that show was undoubtedly Sorkin's creative peak, his previous forays into screenwriting are vastly underrated, including the wonderful adaptation of his own play, A Few Good Men, and the romantic comedy The American President. Charlie Wilson brings him back to politics once again, and, as is par for the course with a Sorkin script, he simply uses the political setup as a playground for his unique characters and trademark dialogue.

Though an invasion and a war serve as its backdrop, Charlie Wilson's War is still very much a comedy. It would have made a fascinating drama, but Sorkin wisely realizes that would be a waste of his main character's sense of humor and amusing antics, which range from hiring a belly dancer to distract a country's defense secretary to sleeping with his campaign donor's daughter. Sorkin also gives Wilson's CIA ally, Gust, one of the more memorable introductory scenes in recent memory, as he tells his superior to "fuck off" and breaks his window to boot.

Sorkin's script has the same breakneck pace of his teleplays as Charlie jets between the States and the Middle East several times in a manner of on-screen minutes. Though scenes can be brief, Sorkin is careful to pack as much information into each of them as possible, employing the same strategy he took on The West Wing: if you don't understand something, too bad, because we're not slowing down to explain it to you. But his real talent is knowing when to slow down, and the film takes it time letting some of the more dramatic moments—such as Charlie's emotional trip to an Afghan refugee camp—really sink in, and this helps the script's comedy to be taken a little more seriously.

The film's weak spot is certainly the third act, where we discover the planning and build-up to the war is far more fascinating than the war itself. We only see the battle through stock footage and statistics, and it's hard to grasp just how this one Congressman affected millions and millions of Afghans. The Soviet invasion also led to the current jihad-driven climate of the country, and though the film correctly alludes to this fact, it's a connection that should probably have been explored a little more. The real-life Wilson went on to become a lobbyist for Afghanistan, and showing some of that late-'90s life might have been a more appropriate bookend to a film that deserves a better ending.

For those looking for a great, largely untold political story without the heavy hand that has been a detriment to the many war films this year, Charlie Wilson's War is one of the better times you'll have at the movies and proves that Aaron Sorkin and politics can still make a potent combination.

Charlie Wilson's War
Universal Studios
Rated R; 97 min.

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Danny Munso graduated from film school in 2004 and can currently be found on his computer working on one of his many half-written screenplays. Or, more likely, he's on the Internet checking the scores of his beloved Bay Area sports teams.

Charlie Wilson's War courtesy Universal Studios

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