Fighting wars is easy. Picking sides is the hard part.
“These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world. And then we fucked up the end game.” That quote, which was inserted as a graphic in the final frame of Charlie Wilson’s War, was attributed to Wilson himself (as opposed to Tom Hanks who’d just spent a couple of hours on screen pretending to be Wilson).
     In a similar vein (or maybe vain), P.J. O’Rourke once wrote: “Whatever governments do, sensible Americans prefer they do it to somebody else. This is the basis of US Foreign Policy.” If that sums up the underlying ideology of US Foreign Policy, “we fucked up the end game” must be the epitaph.
     Charlie Wilson’s War is not a comedy or a drama — it is a satire about Washington, the United States Congress (and its inhabitants), global politics, diplomacy and the perils of large powers conducting foreign policy excursions that affect small countries and dispersed peoples. In that respect it succeeds pretty well.
     Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay of George Crile’s book of the same name has a nice smattering of clever lines which will breeze over the heads of most audiences. Like somebody asking Charlie Wilson why does the United States Congress always say one thing and then do nothing? “Tradition,” replied the congressman.
     Sorkin wrote a swag of West Wing episodes that no doubt honed his skill of translating Washington realpolitik to the screen.
     Mike Nichols — who with a name like that was of course born in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power (son of Mr & Mrs Peschkowsky, a family name almost as welcome as Reubenstein under the Third Reich) — directed the film. Aside from drawing on the quirky humor of Addy Hitler and Joey Goebbels for inspiration, Nichols reprised his gift for political satire first showcased in Primary Colors — a film about a nutty Scientologist running for President (or was it a grab-ass Democratic southern boy?) Anyway, Herr Nichols knows how to set up a shot, make sure the actors hit their marks and hire a DOP who can hold focus on the wide shots. What more can he do?
     Tom Hanks is finally beginning to grow on me. In 1989 he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in Big — interestingly enough the film which sparked my long running Hanks cringe. Since then he’s been Oscar nominated four other times and won two. In the 28 years since I first saw Hanks perform, on Episode 1 of Season 4 of The Love Boat, he’s not been in too many bad films — the greatness of some of his projects I’ll argue; but he’s not stuffed his career with any great turkeys.
      So I’ll concede Hanks is pretty good at vetting screenplays, producers and directors. Among the last ten feature films he’s appeared in are, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, Road to Perdition, Catch Me If You Can and The Terminal. Many better actors have appeared in far worse motion pictures. The only standout turkey in recent years was You’ve Got Mail; and, though he acquitted himself adequately, regular readers will know that I’m no great fan of The Da Vinci Code either.
     While on the subjects of perdition and terminal, fellow Oscar winner, Philip Seymour Hoffman comes to mind. He’s still serving penance for following up an Oscar winning performance with an absolute embarrassment of a performance, as the evil villain, and foil to everybody’s favorite whacky Scientologist’s (Tom not John), in Mission: Impossible III. Phil was sensible enough to take a part in The Big Lebowski, which gets redemption points from me. The only other reason I like him is that he’s the same age as me but looks about 15 years older.
     I cannot let my commentary on Charlie Wilson’s War pass by without mention of its female lead, so here it is: Julia Roberts.
     Texas socialite Joanne Herring is the real life Julia Roberts and kudos to her for getting her lawyers to meddle with the producers of Charlie Wilson’s War who were meddling in her life — though it would hardly have come without an explicit (or highly implicit) invitation from Ms Herring herself. She managed to get some script changes and a quite a few frames pulled (post-production) as they suggested that she and the good congressman had armed the Taliban (and by proxy Al-Qaeda) with the weapons and capital that led to the 9-11 attacks. So good for her, just because she introduced the real Charlie Wilson to, then, Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq (no relation to former Pakistani cricket captain Inzamam Ul-Haq), doesn’t count for supporting terrorism.
      Though Zia’s been dead for decade, his name has been revived recently as he was President when former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was tried and hanged, in what his supporters regarded as a state sanctioned political assassination. Those who read the newspapers will remember that Benazir Bhutto (a former Pakistani prime minister herself) was assassinated late last year, while campaigning for Pakistan’s top political job — she was Zulfikar Ali’s daughter. And Hillary Clinton thinks the US Primaries are tough?
     Punjabi actor (which, for those kids who failed geography, means he’s from India), Om Puri does a nice impersonation of President Zia as a wily, good humored sort of a dictator. Zia’s real life role was in allowing the CIA to covertly move weapons into Afghanistan, through Pakistan, so the Muhajadeen could fight the occupying Soviets. And his deadpan delivery was pretty good, when answering Wilson's request to ship captured Soviet military hardware from Israel (a state which Zia's government did not officially acknowledge existed) to Pakistan his response was positive, “but if I see one fucking Star of David on the shipping crates...”
     Aside from residing half way round the world, Om Puri does something which his Hollywood counterparts don’t. He works as an actor. Which means he works. Apologies to rising Hollywood stars; but spending 12 weeks on location and six weeks on a media junket is not work — it’s just something you do, for which even third tier Hollywood stars receive monetary compensation roughly equivalent to forty years of full-time work, plus four weeks annual vacation, for your average Joe.  
     In 40 years of screen acting, Om Puri has no less than 176 acting credits — that’s working. Probably not since Sinatra has any Hollywood actor actually worked an entire year. Tom Hanks, who’s no bum, was born in the same decade as Puri, yet has played less than one-fifth of the roles Puri has.
      Now that we’ve establish only one of its actors really works, does Charlie Wilson’s War work? Yes, kind of. Maybe it spends too much time skirting the line of Hollywood comedy or Washington satire. People like me always prefer it skirt the latter; but people like me won’t get the studio the kinds of box office receipts needed to pay Messer’s Hanks, Roberts and Hoffman (Dustin or Philip).
     I can’t say it’s a top shelf political satire but had a lesser director — Oliver Stone, for instance — attempted to tell Charlie Wilson’s tale it may well have been a waste of time. With Mike Nichols behind the camera, and Hanks, Roberts and Hoffman in front of it, it probably is worth seeing.