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Charlie Wilson's War
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: December 24, 2007

Aaron Sorkin is a conservative Republican’s worst nightmare. He’s a historian, an entertainer, and a dynamite writer, and these qualities might all be consistent with, and even serviceable to, the desperate and ultra-cynical campaign to disparage all liberal thought as treasonous flakery. Except Sorkin is also a pragmatist, a formidable logician, and—here’s the kicker—an actively patriotic writer. In screenplays for A Few Good Men and The American President, and in teleplays for TV’s The West Wing, he has demonstrated a deep love and understanding of the American political process, the American way of life, and America’s responsibility to itself and to the world. There’s just no way to come after him with anything more rational than willful ignorance and impotent bile.

His latest screenplay, Charlie Wilson’s War, teams him with director Mike Nichols, who once directed the heck out of The Graduate, but is more-or-less neutralized this time by Sorkin’s clever and engaging script. The film tells the true story of Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, a boozer and womanizer who happened to orchestrate the covert operations in The Soviet-Afghan War that repelled Russia’s incursion into The Middle East, precipitated the fall of Communism, brought an end to The Cold War, and, perhaps, saved The Free World. Incidentally, Charlie Wilson was a liberal Democrat, and, as the film tells it, he initiated these heroics without legal authority or the participation of the Republican presidency. So Reagan apologists will have to eat their hearts out or, in lieu of any such trauma, avoid this film and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Among the screenwriter’s maddeningly reasonable liberal themes is the philosophy that people of conflicting political and ideological inclinations can—and should—work together to make the world a safer, saner place. Charlie Wilson’s story allows Sorkin ample opportunity to illustrate this point, as Wilson accomplished his covert war by bringing together the strangest of bedfellows, including fundamentalist Christians, the CIA, the Afghan Mujahideen, and the governments of Israel, Pakistan, and Egypt. The effect is to casually and subtly undermine the exclusionary machinations that tend to characterize Washington politics under the current administration.

Wilson’s personal qualities are, of course, germane to Sorkin’s liberal kung-fu agenda. For conservatives who tend to regard piety as the only measure of a person’s character and value to their country, the carousing Charlie Wilson and his career accomplishments do indeed represent an inconvenient truth. Cocaine abuse is not exactly the essence of nobility, but Sorkin, who has “inhaled” and then some, is clearly gleeful to have found in Charlie Wilson a hero whose profound service to America was nearly prevented by a congressional investigation into his recreational drug use. The scenes involving this investigation are among the film’s funniest. They certainly call to mind Ken Starr’s petty, wasteful witch hunt of Bill Clinton. And they effectively lament the conservative mentality that fixates on lifestyle scandals while matters of grave national importance go unaddressed.

The orchestration of war is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when left wing thinkers take a personal ideological inventory. Neither is meddling in Middle Eastern affairs for that matter. But one of Sorkin’s greatest strengths has always been his practical-mindedness. For instance, wars tend to make military contractors rich, but in this film, the exchange of money for high-tech weaponry is no dirty little secret, but a major plot point. And Sorkin goes to great lengths to explain that America did not initiate the Soviet-Afghan War, or even join it in progress; what we did was fund a completely overmatched Afghan army as they fought off an incursion by our greatest political enemy. As Charlie Wilson once said: “The U.S. had nothing whatsoever to do with these people's decision to fight... But we'll be damned by history if we let them fight with stones.” The fact that the Russians were committing unspeakable atrocities against the Afghan people makes it that much harder to fault Wilson’s decision. In any case, Sorkin’s brand of liberalism, and of morality in general, has never been about America sitting on its own hands.  

There is, of course, a shadow hanging over all this film’s proceedings—that of Osama bin Laden, who was trained and armed by Charlie Wilson’s covert war. Near the film’s conclusion, after the Russians have withdrawn and after the U.S. congress has become fully involved in and enthusiastic about the result, Wilson does seek continued funding for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The scenes are scripted in Sorkin’s trademark ultra-rational tone, and they are quietly agonizing, considering the foregone conclusion. America had no interest in funding a peace effort back then. The parallel with our current Iraq situation is not subtle. And it all serves as a final, scathing criticism of conservative shortsightedness.

You may have heard; there are some high-profile actors in this movie. Not surprisingly, the filmmakers went with Tom Hanks, as opposed to Arnold Schwarzenegger or Mel Gibson, for the role of Charlie Wilson. Hanks is typically professional and charming, and a perfectly adequate vessel for delivering Sorkin’s message. Julia Roberts plays a Houston socialite with a significant role in the proceedings, and her performance, though unremarkable and at times inauthentic, does no damage whatsoever to the film’s enjoyableness. Meanwhile Philip Seymour Hoffman steals the show as Wilson’s primary ally, the rogue CIA agent Gust Avrakotos. Sorkin writes this character as tremendously intelligent and also willfully tactless, and Hoffman brings him to life by somehow understating the man’s overwhelming personality. It’s brilliant acting.

It is profoundly satisfying to see Hollywood release a sane, intelligent, ass-kicking liberal movie. This year has already endured the noble but ginger-stepping worryfest Lions for Lambs, not to mention that Kool-Aid glugging abomination The Astronaut Farmer. Both of those misfires helped perpetuate negative stereotypes about thoughtful and tolerant Americans, but Charlie Wilson’s War has just the opposite effect. Certainly the ideals of the Democratic party extend beyond the scope of this film, notably the belief in regulating a market that Republicans would prefer to see eat its young. But in many ways this is the perfect liberal movie for our time. Thanks Aaron Sorkin. Write us another one, would you please?  

Copyright © 2007 Theo Michelfeld