Film Review - CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR

Tom Hanks is Charlie Wilson, a Texas congressman with a taste for booze, babes and coke. Somehow with the help of Julia Roberts ( playing the sixth richest lady in Texas ) and Phillip Seymour Hoffman ( who though adorning the falsist of false moustaches as a rogue CIA agent - stiil manages to gives yet another every-scene stealing performance ), they manage to successfully mount the largest covert operation in modern history and kick the Ruskies to boot, outta Afghanistan.
Hanks fills the screen with authenticity and humour in the same way George Clooney does. He's a proper film star who never fails to entertain and give 100 percent. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is just magnificent - he is a class act and as mentioned earlier steals every scene. Julia Roberts makes her comeback, after a self imposed exile of four years and gives a subtle performance at least as commanding as Hanks and Hoffman. New girl on the block Amy Adams (Enchanted) also shows much promise as an obviously besotted personnal assistant.
My favourite scene sees our own Ken Stott (Rebus), Hanks and Hoffman all trying to out- perform one another around the dinner table; truly great craftsmanship. But how does the film make us feel and what do we learn from Charlie Wilson's War?
Well to be honest I'm left feeling as emotionally tempered as the Cold War itself, i.e. cold and a bit bored. We learnt that Politics and Governments are corrupt, cruel and coldhearted. But we knew that already didn't we? We learnt that one man and a pretty woman can make a difference. Well kind of, up to a point, and always in the short term, both in the case of Afghanistan here, and events yet to come. Charlie Wilson's War is a well scripted re-telling of a political account of a moment in time. A time which, due to present events, seems even more so over the hill and far away. Does it tickle our collected consciousness, with its near ironic accounts of heroic Afghans fighting to the last? Are we embarrassed by the tales of valour, as we lay witness to peasants attempting to defeat helicopter gunships? Do we squirm in our seats as both Afghan children and American adults give testimony to their unflinching faith that God will rid the mother country of overwhelmingly, powerfull, foreign, invading armies?

Well to be truthfull NO - but the acting is very good...... Where was John Rambo when he was needed?

8/13