Review of Charlie Wilson's War (2007) by Byron B — 19 May 2010

Congressman Charlie Wilson is the most likable character as played by Tom Hanks among the three leads, in my opinion. And yet he's a womanizer without many positive personality traits. I warmed to FBI agent Gust Avrakotos as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman toward the end, mainly because I started to get his sense of humor more.

Joanne Herring as played by Julia Roberts was completely unlikable and grating. Whether their motivations for raising $1 billion annually to give weapons to Afghanistan resistance fighters against the Soviet Union was based on anti-Communist sentiments, naively trying to "save" the hurting underdog from the big bad superpower, having a personal grudge to prove, or wanting to be a Christian missionary to the poor souls out there in the desert, it is the stuff that sickens me about politics and war.

The story is slow moving. I suppose I could have paid better attention to catch more of the details and understand the deals that were being made between different Middle Eastern countries, but I don't have a good background on that history and it confused me.

The last scene in front of the Congressional Committee made the whole movie tragically better. But my favorite part was Gust's story about the little boy and the Zen master. It is a great bit of wisdom and very relevant to life and political maneuvers toward war.

"And the Zen master says, 'We'll see.'".