Review of Charlie Wilson's War (2007) by Dawdlingpoet — 25 Nov 2021

I find it somewhat ironic when Tom Hanks plays the part of characters which live such devious lives, such as Charlie Wilson, considering from what I know of him, he's quite the opposite and indeed is supposedly a very strict father. I think that he was the right actor for this part due to a number of reasons, including his age and his look, or more his expressions in this role, playing the cool as a cucumber congressman who can (or who believes he can) sweet talk most everyone and doesn't believe that any misdemeanours (or worse) he's responsible for will catch up with him.

Its rather depressing viewing, telling the tale of a 'player' who becomes more personally attached to the war he helped back for his own selfish gain, as he's forced to see a bit of the reality behind it while visiting Afghanistan. However, don't be expecting a big epiphany and sudden turnaround from the earlier character, as he does continue to barter and seem like the bigger man but is his heart starting to rule over his head and more importantly greed? eh, I suppose thats up to you to judge.

Don't be expecting much in the way of action scenes in this movie, it mainly consists of political dialogue and is an examination of Charlies ways. I think most women would, after seeing this, be keen on giving him a bit of a slap around the chops! given his behaviour, clearly flirting with many women at the same time and being generally rather selfish - a womanising politician from Texas - shock horror(!) perhaps thats a little unfair, I'm not one who tends to be keen on stereotypes - that much is true (the saying, not the song LOL) but its also true to say that there are some scenes/dialogue which could well make you cringe with his strong Texan accent and his wily 'chat up lines', so don't say I didn't warn you.

I shouldn't make it sound as if the entire movie only features Charlie himself - given his personality, it a) wouldn't make a great deal of sense and b) it would make it rather boring I suppose. Other characters include Joanne Herring, one of the most powerful women in Texas who, of course, Charlie has his eye on for more reasons than one - Joanne is played by another 'a lister' - Julia Roberts. She's certainly no 'dumb blonde' and indeed I think the two of them played off each other so to speak, from what I remember. I think the pairing of the two actors worked quite well, although their not on screen for the entire movie. Another character in the movie is Bonnie Bach, who's played by Amy Adams, who is frustrated as she discovers Charlie's 'ways' - she's a bit more naive and again, her performance is alright. The main non-female secondary role is played by Philip Seymour Hoffman as Gust Avrakotos, who you could describe as a bit of a whistle blower, someone who's cottoned on to the fact that Charlie is no real clean man in many ways and who attempts to bring to light things that Charlie would rather not have come out. There's some pretty good dialogue between these two characters, some of which you can read here:- http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0043843/quotes though obviously be aware that its a bit of a spoiler to read them all if you've not seen the movie but yes, he is a key character too and its interesting to see how the two of them interact (I quickly scanned the link above, there doesn't appear to be any very strong language in the quotes so it should be ok to link to).