CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (R)  ***

 

Directed by Mike Nichols. 97 minutes.

Starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ned Beatty and Emily Blunt. Released by Universal Pictures.

 

You’ve got to say this for Charlie Wilson’s War – it may not be the best of this year’s U.S.-Middle Eastern conundrum films, but it’s certainly the most chipper. The film, based on the true exploits of a Texas congressman circa 1980 who covertly funded the Afghani Mujahideen war against the Soviets, presents its source material humorously through its characters’ jokey manners but never treats its subject as if it were a joke. It’s been a year chock full of Iraq and Middle East-related films, ranging from the solid - In the Valley of Elah, Rendition and No End in Sight – to the somewhat misbegotten – Lions for Lambs or Redacted. Charlie Wilson’s War would fall somewhere in between those two categories. It’s a likeable and well-made movie with solid performances that never really reaches the level of greatness. But there’s a lot of stuff if you know what I mean and the film never talks down to its audience.

 

In the film, Tom Hanks plays Charlie Wilson, an affable Democratic congressman from a Texas district that, according to Charlie, has no needs other than the right to bear arms and low taxes. Charlie would rather be snorting cocaine in a hot tub with naked strippers and Playboy models than haunting the halls of Washington, D.C., much to the chagrin of his patient assistants and attractive all-female office staff. Wilson observes the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the television and his soul is stirred by it. He becomes entangled with a Houston socialite (Julia Roberts), who wants to the U.S. to take part in holy wars and other such neoconservative platforms. Add to the triangle, a renegade CIA agent (Philip Seymour Hoffman) whose inability to get along with his co-workers lands him at the agency’s mostly forgotten Afghanistan desk.

 

The trio begins funding a war amidst the cold war, supplying Afghani freedom fighters with rocket launchers and other such weaponry with which they shoot down Soviet helicopters. All the while, Wilson’s notorious behavior – the cocaine snorting, especially – comes under the scrutiny of an investigation. Hoffman’s CIA agent points out that the feds will be looking at Charlie’s private life and may not notice the elephant in the room that is his covert operations with the Mujahideen.

 

Director Mike Nichols plays a lot of the film’s scenarios for laughs, especially Charlie’s dealings with leaders from Pakistan, Israel, the CIA and those whom he hopes will fund his operations. The scenes in the Middle East take on a more somber tone, especially when Wilson and a congressional leader (Ned Beatty) visit children whose arms have been blown off by mines and a massive refugee camp. Nichols does a good job of blending pathos with wise cracking humor. Only a few times does he go overboard, most notably a sequence in which Wilson tries to deal with his personal scandals and taking part in his first meeting with Hoffman.

 

The performances here are solid. Hanks, usually playing the master statesman, does a good job as a guy who sort of tows the line of acceptable behavior in an elected official (though, I’ll take his Clintonian mistakes over current elected officials’ Orwellian ones any day) but still knows how to deliver. “You never make a promise you can’t keep,” a Pakistani leader tells him. He’s not quite a lovable lout because he doesn’t really affect anyone negatively. Hoffman also does a good job despite the fact that his character is written to be such a hard ass and that all of his witty one liners are written almost argumentatively. But Hoffman is a great actor and rises above the occasional one-notedness of his character. Despite its heavy subject matter, only completely revealing its purpose in a final post script from the real Wilson, the film moves lightly and breezily. It’s a fun movie about heavy stuff.